State Secretary for Legal Protection Teun Struyken is holding discussions with Minister Marjolein Faber about the Asylum Crisis Act. “I am talking to her about what she wants to do and how this can be done in a successful and sustainable way,” the minister says on the radio programme Sven ref. 1.
“The Netherlands, we are in a refugee crisis,” Minister Faber (Asylum and Migration) said in Catshuis last week. She added later in the day that such a crisis does not legally exist. “I can declare it legally. Then I have to take certain legal steps.
Faber wants to present proposals to this effect on Budget Day, but Prime Minister Dick Schoof responded to the minister. “The asylum crisis law takes time. So I don't think this will work on Budget Day. We really need more time for that.” Stroecken believes the prime minister is right and that it will take some time before the law is actually on the table.
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“Think more broadly and deeply”
The state minister, who came to The Hague at the invitation of National Security Council leader Peter Omtzigt and described the move as a “very big gamble”, warned that the law should not be introduced too quickly. “This has happened wrongly in the past. Laws have been made that have subsequently failed in court because proper consideration was not given to their compatibility with fundamental rights and legal principles. Laws must be understandable, coherent and accessible.
“If it is about the Aliens Act, which is part of the asylum crisis law, then you have to look: What do you want to achieve? The government programme provides an incentive for more detail, but there are many points that we need to think about more carefully, more comprehensively and more deeply,” he continues.
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Struyken, who wants to sit down with Faber more often, stresses that it takes time. “There is an element in her policy, making the procedure faster and shorter and eliminating appeals, and then you end up with me. I will talk to her about that.”
An “organized process” is needed.
The law that will eventually emerge from the Faber agreement will have to be upheld in court and in Brussels, says Struyken. He does not know whether such a law will be possible before the end of this year. “It also depends on what you arrange. You don’t have to arrange everything at once. Part of the process now is what do you do within your department in the shortest possible time and what do you do in the longer term to some extent?”
“But an orderly process, careful evaluation and careful study are necessary at all points as well as at this point. The prime minister said that too,” the minister said.
“The cabinet really wants change”
Stroecken does not want to say whether Faber has started too quickly. “I have no opinion on that. She wants to change something just like me. That is her ambition in her policy area and my ambition in my policy area. It is also a matter of research, research, dialogue and making a difference together. The new government really wants to change a number of sticking points in society.”
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