Prime Minister Schoof assures: "The asylum crisis law is coming"

Prime Minister Dick Schoof is confident that the Cabinet will introduce an asylum crisis law, as announced in the coalition agreement. "There will be an asylum crisis law. There must be no misunderstandings about that." He admits that there are many concerns regarding the legal admissibility of such an intervention. That is why it is still unclear when the bill will be presented.

"I cannot give an exact date at the moment," said the Prime Minister in his press conference after the Council of Ministers. The minister responsible, Marjolein Faber, initially said she wanted to present the relevant plans around Prinsjesdag. However, Schoof stated on the same day that this would probably not be the case after all.

"I can declare that legally. Then I would have to take certain legal steps," Faber explained last week. Plans are being developed in her ministry to do this.

"We will ensure that the law is legally tenable from our point of view," said the Dutch Prime Minister at the press conference. "It is important for us that the Council of Ministers can properly pass the law." According to Schoof, however, the question of legal tenability will not cause the Cabinet to take a different path after all. "I assume without question that we will come up with an asylum crisis law."

There was a lot of fuss about the law because Faber said this week that the Netherlands was in an asylum crisis. This seemed to pre-empt the introduction of the crisis law, but she later had to explain that this was merely her own view of what was happening in society.

The Telegraaf reported that last month, the Immigration and Naturalization Service (IND) had received more than 39,000 applications from those who wish to follow a family member into the Netherlands. It is still unclear how many of those will be approved.

"Everything is jam-packed," Faber responded. The minister did not want to discuss her plans to curb the influx of asylum seekers, according to WNL.