The PVV (Party for Freedom) is still unsure whether it will agree to the asylum laws of ‘its’ former minister Marjolein Faber. The party says it will not agree to a “weak imitation” of the laws. In fact, it wants even stricter laws.
The House of Representatives is debating all day Thursday about two laws that will drastically change the asylum system. These laws, the asylum emergency measures law and the two-status system, were created by the now-departed asylum minister Faber (PVV). The laws are now being defended by two of her three successors.
However, the laws are still not to the PVV’s liking. Faber always indicated that she did not want to change anything about the plans, despite all the criticism from the implementing organizations. She would at most change a period or comma, she maintained.
Now that the PVV has stepped out of the coalition, the party sees the space to change more than periods or commas. But then in a way that, according to the party, makes the policy even stricter.
For example, PVV Member of Parliament Marina Vondeling has submitted amendments to immediately withdraw the distribution law and to criminalize illegal stay. The party also wants an asylum seeker to explicitly renounce sharia law. If not, that should be a reason to reject an asylum application.
Vondeling did not yet want to indicate, despite questions from her fellow members of parliament, whether the party will only agree to the law if those amendments are adopted.
The PVV member wants to first see if there is support for her proposals and to what extent the law is still being modified based on the wishes of other parties. “Then we will see what is left of the law and vote on it.” But the party will not agree to a “weak imitation,” Vondeling already warned.
Without the PVV, good for 37 seats, it will be very difficult to find a majority for the laws. Opposition parties also see little merit in the laws as they are now. For example, the CDA says it supports the laws, but a lot still needs to be improved. The party wants, among other things, the laws to only take effect next year, when the new European rules also come into effect.
And even if the laws are changed in such a way that the CDA and other doubting opposition parties agree to them, it will still be virtually impossible to get a majority without the 37 seats of the PVV. Other (large) opposition parties, such as GroenLinks-PvdA and D66, have already indicated that they do not agree with the laws at all.