Migration is one of the most important files at the formation table. All four forming parties want the number of immigrants to be reduced. According to Eerdmans, the British Rwanda law is also useful for the Netherlands. “You are not allowed to send a refugee back to unsafe areas, so you have to look for a country, in Africa as far as I’m concerned, that can deliver the Dutch standard,” he says.
Eerdmans is not convinced about the specific country of Rwanda. “It has a regime that is stable and democratically elected, but there are problems locally.” He cites Zambia as an example of a country that is more stable. “You have to make agreements with a country that will take over the asylum procedure. Then you no longer have the pressure on the asylum chain.”
By the way, the four parties that are now forming – PVV, VVD, BBB and NSC (then still in the capacity of the ‘Omtzigt group’) – already announced about a year ago that they were interested in taking over the Rwanda plan.
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Cruel
Professor of Migration History Leo Lucassen is not in favor of the plan. “It’s cruel, expensive and ineffective,” he says. Great Britain wants to prevent migrants from crossing the Channel in boats, but this policy does not stop it at all, he says: “Refugees who are now in northern France have been asked whether they will still risk the crossing to England if they know that they can be put on a plane to Rwanda. Everyone says ‘yes’. People have acquaintances in England.”
He points to Australia, which sent asylum seekers to Papua New Guinea, for example. Reports showed that this did not exactly go smoothly, but that even there the boats kept coming. “It wasn’t until the Australian Navy went to intercept them that it stopped.”
Another argument is price. According to Lucassen, England will pay approximately €100,000 per migrant who goes to Rwanda. That is why it will probably involve “a few hundred, a maximum of a thousand” migrants, says Lucassen.
Integrate
Instead of letting people stay in Rwanda, it is better to ensure that they integrate better in the Netherlands, he believes. “You have to ensure that people can quickly build a normal life and that is not possible in Rwanda. Ensure that people become refugees much faster and are part of our society.” We need this too, he says: “Europe is a demographically shrinking continent.”
Eerdmans continues to think it is a good plan and he thinks that more countries in Europe will embrace this type of solution. “There is a leading group of countries that look at it from the right,” he concludes.