The collapse of a Dutch coalition government over a proposed refugee policy has again underlined the power of immigration as an arbiter of European politics and how preventing far-right parties from capitalizing on it is a growing problem for to the main politicians.
The current crisis in the Netherlands was precipitated by its conservative prime minister, Mark Rutte, who resigned after his centrist coalition partners refused to back his tough new refugee policy.
Dutch media reported that Mr. Rutte had proposed, among other things, a two-year waiting period before children of recognized refugees living in the Netherlands could join their parents, something that was not initiated for his coalition partners.
For Mr. Rutte, a skilled operator known as “Teflon Mark” for his 13-year hold on power, holding the line on an issue that many of his voters care deeply about was a matter of political survival, analysts say, which went beyond. the useful life of this particular coalition.
More broadly, the will of Mr. Rutte’s decision to overthrow the government instead of engaging on the issue speaks of a new phase in European migration policy. Newly empowered far-right parties have dominated the narrative on migration, capitalizing on growing public fears about national identity, and Mr. Rutte’s unusual and tough policy seemed destined to prevent that, analysts said.
And this deeper problem is playing out across the continent against the backdrop of a cost-of-living crisis, insecurity stemming from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, a growing number of asylum seekers and immigrant tragedies at EU borders.
Since the height of the Syrian refugee crisis in 2015, Italy, Germany and France, as well as smaller EU countries, have seen the rise of far-right political parties that have reshaped their countries’ political fortunes .
Matteo Salvini, a powerful far-right politician, for example, has been a key figure in Italian politics; France’s Marine Le Pen, who uses anti-migration and anti-establishment messages, came perilously close last spring to beating Emmanuel Macron for the presidency of the republic.
And Hungary’s Viktor Orban, the illiberal and anti-European leader, has weaponized anti-migration rhetoric to become a leading global voice in the identity movement, with a strong following among the American right.
Over the past decade or so, centrist parties have tried to accommodate the hard-line immigration views of traditional conservative voters while banding together to keep far-right parties at bay. But as the collapse of the Dutch government seems to demonstrate, that strategy may be running its course.
The four-party coalition of Mr. Rutte, who included two smaller parties to his left, was already in trouble. The way he decided to end it was akin to a controlled demolition.
“That the coalition collapsed on this issue is extremely surprising,” said Marcel Hanegraaff, associate professor of political science at the University of Amsterdam. But that it barely collapsed was a shock, he added.
“It was not a happy marriage,” she said.
Mr. Rutte has said he will not form a government with far-right parties such as Geert Wilders’ Freedom Party, an anti-immigration group that burst onto the scene nearly two decades ago in an earlier revolt against immigrants. Mr Wilders has had limited electoral success, but his ideas found wider appeal and permeated mainstream politics after the Syrian refugee crisis in 2015, when more than a million refugees sought safety in Europe.
On the European stage, Mr. Rutte has become a staunch advocate of curbing migration to the European Union, casting himself in a different role than Italy’s Giorgia Meloni, who has far-right roots, or Kyriakos Mitsotakis, the Greek conservative leader who has overseen brutal border practices against migrants.
Highlighting his role in Europe and the growing importance of migration policy at home, Mr. Rutte accompanied Mrs. Meloni and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on a recent visit to Tunisia, where the three offered the government $1 billion in financial aid and asked it to stop migrants from reaching Europe, until and all while getting Tunisian law enforcement to stop migrant boats from leaving illegally. The presence of a far-right and a mainstream conservative leader in Tunis signaled broad EU support for direct partnerships with would-be migrants’ countries of origin.
Mr. Rutte has also been a strong supporter of Europe-wide migration management tools, such as the European Union’s joint border agency, aimed at keeping migrants away from the rich heartlands of northern Europe, where your country is located.
In the European context, the Netherlands barely registers as a country with a serious migration problem. It is the fourth richest nation in the bloc, but the refugee population it hosts, as a percentage of its population, ranks right on the EU average. Even so, the number of people seeking asylum in the Netherlands has grown over the past year, in line with the general trend in Europe.
But Dutch analysts say a critical issue fueling anxiety over migration is an affordable housing crisis, reinforced by the perception that the country, with its growing population and expanding agricultural sector, is staying no space
Critics say the hard line advocated by Mr. Rutte would have had limited impact even if enacted. The number of refugees in the Netherlands seeking family members to join them is so small, said Mark Klaassen, assistant professor of immigration law at Leiden University, that it would not significantly affect the total number of refugees
Mr. Klaassen said that Mr. Rutte, known as a consensus builder who had previously been unwilling to use migration policy for his own benefit, appeared to be changing his stance. “What is new is that with this development, immigration law is being used for political advantage,” Klaassen added.
Mr. Klaassen said the immigration problems of Mr. Rutte were partly made by his own government. Slow processing has worsened bottlenecks in the asylum process, Klaassen said. And the lack of affordable housing has caused recognized refugees to stay longer in processing centers as they struggle to find permanent housing, leading to overcrowding and inhumane living conditions.
Attje Kuiken, leader of the opposition Dutch Labor Party, called the decision to let the government collapse over the issue irresponsible, citing the housing crisis and inflation as more pressing problems to be addressed confronts the government of the Netherlands, among other things.
“Rutte chose his own interests above those of the country, and I hope everyone sees that,” said Ms. Kuiken in a Dutch talk show.
“We saw a very different Mark Rutte,” said Jan Paternotte, the president of the centrist D66 party, one of the coalition parties that refused to support some of Mr. Rutte’s immigration policies. Route. He added that Mr. Rutte refused to compromise on his proposals and questioned the real motives behind the intractability.
The collapse of the government delighted Mr. Wilders, the leader of the right, who wrote Twitter that its end would make the Netherlands a “beautiful country again, with less asylum seekers and crime, more money and housing for our own people”.
But what will happen next in Dutch politics is unclear, and probably won’t be until elections can be held, most likely in November. Mr Rutte, who tendered his resignation to the Dutch king on Friday evening, will continue as acting prime minister until then.
