The European Migration Pact is Nothing But an EU Distribution Law. The High Rates of Immigration Will Simply Continue!

Speech, 3 March 2026

The implementation of the Asylum and Migration Pact is on the agenda of the Justice and Home Affairs EU Council (JBZ Council) on 5 and 6 March.

For Forum for Democracy it is clear: the European Migration Pact will not fundamentally limit migration to the Netherlands. The right to apply for asylum will not change; every application will still be assessed individually, and a rejection can still be appealed before a court. That does not change with this Pact.

Does the minister acknowledge that this pact does not legally restrict the inflow, but mainly concerns its organisation and redistribution?

Then the Solidarity Mechanism - a nice term for what is essentially just a Distribution Law at the European level. Member states can either accept asylum seekers on their territory or pay about €20,000 per person in fines - and we know that not every country will cooperate with redistribution.

Poland, for example, has already opposed this before. Hungary has refused to cooperate with European obligations for years.  The Czech Republic and Slovakia have also spoken out against it. These countries dare to act in the interests of their own country.

What does this mean for the Netherlands?

If all countries prefer to pay rather than accept asylum seekers, the pressure will remain on the countries at the external borders of Europe, such as Italy and Greece. If reception facilities there fill up, asylum seekers will simply continue travelling. With open internal borders, they will eventually end up in the Netherlands anyway.

So we may end up paying €20,000 per person not to take them in, while still receiving inflow through secondary migration.

My question to the minister therefore is: what guarantees does he have that the Netherlands will not both pay and still face migration pressure?

And if in practice redistribution does not work, and asylum seekers still come to the Netherlands in large numbers despite these payments, is he then willing to consider that the Netherlands should also stop cooperating with this mechanism?

The cabinet calls return “the cornerstone of a functioning asylum policy.” But merely stating this is not enough, because migration also creates an economic incentive for countries of origin.

According to recent estimates by the World Bank, migrants transferred around $669 billion worldwide to low- and middle-income countries in 2024. From the Netherlands alone, this amounts to more than €4 billion per year.

In Eritrea, this is estimated to account for 30–40% of GDP, in Somalia 20–30%, in Afghanistan around 20%, and in Syria roughly 15–20%.

This shows that countries of origin benefit from migration flows to Western countries. They will therefore not readily take their citizens back. Why would they, if it brings them so much money?

My final question to the minister is therefore this: if return really is the cornerstone, is he willing to investigate whether money transfers to countries which structurally refuse to cooperate with readmission could be limited or regulated?

As long as the Netherlands remains bound by the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), the Refugee Convention, and European asylum law, the right to apply for asylum will remain in place, and returning people to their countries of origin will remain practically impossible.

As long as those obligations continue to exist, this European Migration Pact will change nothing fundamental.

If the Netherlands wants control over its borders, it must honestly address the question of whether we want to continue adhering to these treaties and European rules, or whether we want to withdraw from them in order to once again decide for ourselves who is allowed to enter our country.