(Bloomberg) -- Far-right lawmaker Geert Wilders’ Freedom Party and his coalition partners have hammered out a deal that sets the Netherlands on course for a strict migration policy.
The cabinet proposed implementing border controls from the end of November and cracking down on asylum seekers from Syria. It will also do away with permanent asylum permits and ban family reunification for adult children and unmarried partners, according to a letter Prime Minister Dick Schoof sent to parliament on Friday.
“The Netherlands is in the middle of an asylum crisis,” Schoof said. “A broad package of measures must be deployed immediately,” he said.
Migration has been a hot-button issue in the Netherlands, triggering the collapse of former Prime Minister Mark Rutte’s government and dominating the elections last year. The new cabinet led by Wilders’ party has vowed to significantly curb migration and opt out of the European Union’s migration pact, moving the country to pursue its most conservative agenda in decades.
The asylum deal, which will be submitted to parliament this year, was forged after lengthy negotiations on Thursday between Wilders’ Freedom Party, the populist Farmer-Citizen Movement, the center-right New Social Contract and People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy.
In September, the government unveiled plans for an emergency crisis law that would enable the cabinet to push through stringent measures by initially bypassing parliament. That plan was ultimately abandoned after the New Social Contract party wrangled with Wilders about their concerns with declaring an emergency legislation.
The cabinet also proposed to reduce the validity of new residence permits to asylum seekers to three years from the current five years.
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