Prime Minister acknowledges risk of Cabinet collapse, but no one has threatened it

The government's continued existence was at stake due to the problems with the asylum emergency law, Prime Minister Dick Schoof acknowledged on the radio programme Met het Oog op Morgen. According to him, no one had threatened a government crisis, not even PVV leader Geert Wilders, who initially continued to adhere to the emergency law. "But we did say to each other that if we don't get out of this, it could easily lead to the fall of the government," said Schoof.

The leaders of the four coalition parties reached an agreement on Thursday night to withdraw the emergency law and tighten asylum measures. Schoof first spoke several times with the opposing parties PVV and NSC, and on Wednesday afternoon coalition partners VVD and BBB were called in. On Thursday they reached an agreement after a consultation of almost nine hours. The Schoof I Cabinet then immediately agreed to the amended asylum agreements on Friday.

For example, the agreements stipulate that the Netherlands will only accept 200 instead of 500 people when refugees are redistributed by the United Nations. Furthermore, illegal immigrants who are caught by the border controls will be sent back to Belgium or Germany.

The agreements ensure that "we have a strict migration policy that is legally tenable and can go through normal parliamentary treatment," the NSC said on Friday. "This is more effective and ensures faster results."

In addition, the Cabinet does not want to obligate municipalities to arrange living areas for asylum seekers who have been granted temporary residence permits, otherwise known as status holders. “Austere reception” will be used for them.

Schoof thinks that everyone at the table felt that "if we could not reach an agreement, the decision-making of the Cabinet could also become very complicated". According to prime minister, that could have meant that "a discussion could flare up about the continued existence of the Cabinet. But no one threatened that".

Earlier in the day, Schoof had already said during his press conference that he was grateful that everyone at the table was prepared to "jump over their shadow".

Acting NSC faction leader Nicolien van Vroonhoven also confirms that there was a mutual awareness that the Cabinet could fall if this did not work. In the TV program Café Kockelmann she confirmed that there was no threat of a fall, but that they did feel that it was looming. They felt that they had to get out of it and there was also "mutual understanding" between PVV and NSC. In the conversations with Wilders, things sometimes got "really rough", but it was "not unpleasantly annoying", said Van Vroonhoven, who has been replacing the sick Pieter Omtzigt for several months.

She revealed that she had sat down with Wilders and Schoof very regularly in a small committee to discuss a solution. At that time, asylum minister Marjolein Faber was still openly adhering to the emergency law and even reported that the "supporting justification" that had to substantiate the emergency law was ready. She later adjusted that. Van Vroonhoven said that she had never seen a supporting justification.