In Chap. 3 we established that increasing ethnic diversity puts pressure on social cohesion.Footnote 1 In Chap. 4 we noted the lack of coherence between policies addressing migration and aspects of conviviality. These observations raise the question as to what extent the government could take more account of the issue of social cohesion in the design of Dutch migration policy.

7.1 Migration Policy as a Balancing Act

Achieving better coherence between migration policy on the one hand and policy to increase social cohesion on the other is challenging because social cohesion is not the primary issue determining Dutch migration policy. That is actually the product of a complex balancing act involving different interests in all kinds of areas, in particular the economy, respect for private and family life and humanitarian considerations.Footnote 2 We can link these three particular interests to three distinct types of migration: respectively, labour, family and asylum migration. Together, these account for the lion’s share of all migration by non-Dutch nationals to the Netherlands.Footnote 3

In outlining the contours of a migration policy that also serves Dutch society, we assume that there is a certain leeway for this to be decided at the national level. At the same time we acknowledge that Dutch policy is anchored in international regulations and agreements, including free movement within the European Union, the Geneva Refugee Convention, the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (ECHR) and the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union. International legal frameworks thus shape much of the legislation governing migration to the Netherlands. In many cases these have been established through complex negotiations between states, involving multiple issues. Naturally, the Netherlands must remain a reliable partner for other states bound by international law and so this factor should always be taken into account when considering any changes to the rules in the field of immigration.

Despite the fact that international treaties outrank the Dutch Constitution in the legislative hierarchy and that the Dutch legal order is bound by EU law, so-called ‘European policy variations’ are possible.Footnote 4 These can be applied particularly to asylum migration and to labour migration from outside the EU/EFTA zone. Individual member states are also allowed some flexibility with regard to family migration. European directives may be incorporated into national legislation in different ways.Footnote 5

In elaborating a migration policy that serves social cohesion, our starting point is the three main types of migration to the Netherlands by non-Dutch citizens: labour, family and asylum migration.Footnote 6 The policy governing each of these is rooted in different interests or principles.

In order to gain a better insight into the complex pattern of interests and principles associated with Dutch migration policy, it is necessary to draw an analytical distinction between these three types. We acknowledge that people’s actual motive for migrating does not always correspond with their official one: the grounds on which they seek to gain access to another country. In many cases, moreover, they in fact have multiple motives. But whilst this plurality is an important factor when studying the phenomenon of international migration, it is advisable when it comes to the admissions policy of the Dutch government to draw a clear distinction between the ‘official’ migration types.Footnote 7

7.2 Labour Migration: Demand-Driven and Circular

In discussing labour migration to the Netherlands, we have to distinguish between migration within the EU/EFTA zone and by so-called ‘third-country nationals’ from other parts of the world. Dutch policymakers are able to exert virtually no influence over arrivals from other EU/EFTA member states because the Netherlands is bound by the 1957 Treaty Establishing the European Economic Community,Footnote 8 which provides for ‘freedom of movement for workers’ (currently Article 45 TFEU).Footnote 9 The majority of incoming labour migration, approximately 55–60% in 2016, originates within the EU/EFTA.Footnote 10

Because the Netherlands is bound by EU treaties, in this section we focus entirely upon labour migration from outside the EU/EFTA zone. In so doing we outline means to improve policy in this domain so that it continues to bolster the real incomes of those already living in the country whilst at the same time harming social cohesion as little as possible.

7.2.1 Complementary Workforce Required

Government policy for labour migration from outside the EU/EFTA zone should in the first place aim to ensure that this improves the real incomes of those already living in the Netherlands. There is a generally held assumption in this respect that when migrants play a complementary role in the labour market, not affecting the established workforce, that benefits the economy.Footnote 11

At first sight it seems relatively easy to formulate a widely accepted labour migration policy on the basis of this assumption. In fact, however, that gives rise to three problems. The first is a distribution issue. It is quite possible that such a policy ends up benefiting employers in particular, whilst employees lose out.Footnote 12 The Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis (Centraal Planbureau, CPB) argues that settled workers with knowledge and skills similar to those possessed by immigrants are disadvantaged in this situation, but the opposite is true for those with no such overlap.Footnote 13

The second problem is one of short-term gains versus long-term effects.Footnote 14 Labour migration that fills current gaps in the jobs market, and therefore helps the economy in the short term, can still have a negative impact over a longer period. An example of this is the recruitment of low-skilled migrant workers from Morocco and Turkey in the 1960s and early 1970s.Footnote 15

A third issue is that proponents of labour migration tend to focus upon its economic benefits, without considering its potential to disrupt social cohesion. The rewards are reaped primarily by employers, but the burden of any accompanying problems is shifted onto society at large. We all therefore share the cost of tackling them, which in turn leads to a decrease in real per-capita income. In fact, this too is a distribution issue. Moreover, it can take time for the social problems to set in.

7.2.2 The Importance of Circularity

To a large extent, problems of social cohesion seem to be limited if labour migration remains temporary in nature. To clarify the relevance of a circularity-based system, it is useful to consider the period of reconstruction in the wake of the Second World War. Those years were characterized by unprecedented economic growth, which resulted in a serious shortage of workers in the most labour-intensive sections of the economy.Footnote 16 Dutch industries, in co-operation with the government, tried to find a solution to this by recruiting in a number of countries around the Mediterranean Sea.Footnote 17 The idea behind this was that it would result in a ‘win-win’ situation. On the one hand the ‘guest workers’ would strengthen Dutch industry by doing jobs for which no local employees could be found, whilst on the other they would be able to convert the (often modest) wages they earned in the Netherlands into a high real income in their country of origin through remittances or by saving for their return home. This assumption proved partially correct: the vast majority of Italian and Spanish guest workers (see Box 7.1), and also some of those from Turkey and Morocco,Footnote 18 did indeed migrate back to their country of origin with a considerable amount of money in local currency.

Box 7.1: The Arrival and Return of Italian and Spanish Guest Workers

Labour migration by Italians to the Netherlands (and other parts of northern and western Europe) has a long history. Most of those who arrived between the wars came from northern and central Italy to work as terrazzo workers (specialist floorlayers), plaster figurine makers, artists or ice-cream makers.Footnote 19 After the Second World War, the majority hailed from southern ItalyFootnote 20 and worked mainly in industry and mining.Footnote 21 But as their own country’s industrial north began to flourish, more and more migrants from the south chose that as a destination over a move to north-western Europe.Footnote 22 As a result, Italian labour migration to the Netherlands declined from the 1960s onwards and many of those already here returned to their homeland at the end of their contract.

Up until 1957, the Franco regime in Spain pursued a policy of autarchy. Consequently, there was hardly any Spanish labour migration to north-western Europe. That changed with the so-called Stabilization Plan (Plan de Estabilización) of 1959, which liberalized the international movement of people and goods. Labour migration was now actually encouraged, in part through the establishment of the Spanish Institute of Emigration (Instituto Español de Emigratión).Footnote 23 This prompted an exodus of workers to other European countries, the United States and Latin America. The period 1960–1973 saw several years in which the number of registered labour migrants with another European country as their destination exceeded 100,000.Footnote 24 In the 1960s, Spaniards made up the largest group of guest workers in the Netherlands,Footnote 25 but their role in the migrant workforce declined in the early 1970s due to more intensive recruitment in other countries. Also, as in Italy, albeit on a more modest scale, domestic migration began to supplant international movement. This was due in part to the success of the Stabilization Plan itself: between 1959 and 1973 Spain had the world’s second highest economic growth rate, behind only Japan, and became its ninth largest economy.Footnote 26 Catalonia, the Basque Country and the region around Madrid, in particular, flourishedFootnote 27 so much that they become appealing alternatives for potential migrant workers from the rest of the country.

The abiding legacy of the ‘guest worker’ period, however, comes from those who stayed in the Netherlands and eventually brought over their families from their countries of origin. As a result, the Turkish and Moroccan communities are now the two largest groups here with a migrant background.Footnote 28 Unfortunately, even into the second generation their socio-economic integration has sometimes fallen short.

National governments would therefore be well-advised to learn from the mistakes of the past and consider more circular forms of labour migration. Just as the decades following the Second World War saw what seemed at the time to be a never-ending economic boom, so we are now experiencing a fundamental development very likely to result in a persistent shortage of labour. That is the ageing of the Dutch population, which will continue until around 2040 and is steadily increasing the proportion of economically inactive people in society.Footnote 29 Due to the ageing population and the economic development of the EU Member States in central and eastern Europe, future labour migrants will increasingly come from outside the EU/EFTA zone. This offers opportunities for setting circular conditions for labour migration.

7.2.3 Demand for Different Types of Labour Migrant

It is often assumed that the Netherlands’ primary need is highly skilled migrants, but in fact this is not the case. As early as 2003, for example, the Advisory Committee on Migration Affairs (Adviescommissie voor Vreemdelingenzaken, ACVZ) foresaw impending labour shortages in the care sector, infrastructure, construction, hospitality, agriculture and horticulture.Footnote 30 This makes it important, as well as focusing upon highly skilled professionals, to consider how to fill thousands of potential vacancies for low-skilled and medium-skilled personnel if their principal current source, central and eastern Europe, threatens to dry up. If policymakers wait until that tide starts to ebb, there is a risk that other countries will gain a head start in attracting workers at these levels. Indeed, something similar happened in the 1960s. Partly because Germany started recruiting Turkish guest workers earlier, it succeeded better than the Netherlands in attracting relatively well-educated people from more developed regions. The same could now happen again.Footnote 31

On 1 March 2020 a new law came into force in Germany: the Skilled Immigration Act (Fachkräfteeinwanderungsgesetz). In many respects this is similar to the Dutch Highly Skilled Migrants Scheme (Kennismigrantenregeling). There is a crucial difference, though: the German version allows ‘skilled workers with approved vocational qualifications’ (‘Fachkräfte mit qualifizierten Berufsausbildungen’) to work in the country under certain conditions, not just the ‘highly skilled’ professionals (‘kennismigranten’, effectively meaning university graduates) covered by the Dutch scheme. Through this measure the German government is attempting to find a solution for shortages in the labour market and demographic developments (the ageing population).Footnote 32 This approach offers a good starting point for a reassessment of Dutch labour migration policy.

7.2.4 Do Highly Skilled Migrants Make Us Any Wiser?

By focusing upon the development of a so-called ‘knowledge economy’, the Dutch government hopes to improve labour productivity and hence national prosperity.Footnote 33

It is obvious that increasing the amount of human capital at work has a role to play in achieving this goal, but it is questionable whether all forms of knowledge contribute towards it. In certain disciplines, that seems doubtful. Nevertheless, many researchers and policymakers assume that a labour force with better skills overall – regardless of the specific areas in which they have improved – will automatically generate higher labour productivity and so increase GDP per capita.Footnote 34

Views differ on the relationship between educational expansion and economic growth, as well as the underlying mechanisms involved. Some believe that technological progress increases the need for a highly skilled workforce.Footnote 35 This leads to relative growth in wages for that group, making it more attractive to stay in education and obtain the necessary qualifications. In this view, a person with a higher relative level of education is more productive.Footnote 36 And if the average educational attainment of the population as a whole increases, that leads to greater collective prosperity. Others, however, take the view that ongoing educational expansion is caused by individuals trying to defend their (future) position in the labour market relative to others.Footnote 37 A person with a higher education simply displaces someone with a secondary education, and they in turn displace someone with only a basic education, without this resulting in additional productivity.Footnote 38

This latter point of view plays only a minor role in Dutch policymaking concerning labour migration, as exemplified by the Highly Skilled Migrants Scheme. In certain cases, someone seeking to enter the country under this arrangement has only to meet a set salary threshold (and in some cases not even that),Footnote 39 regardless of whether their specific skills are actually needed here. If the truth in the choice between the two visions described lies somewhere in the proverbial middle, then ideally we would opt for a sector-specific admissions policy for labour migrants.

7.2.5 Labour Migration and Social Cohesion

Since the end of the 1990s, cities like The Hague and Rotterdam have faced a rapid and large influx of labour migrants for which they were not prepared.Footnote 40 This has led to social problems. The most obvious is the lack of adequate and flexible living accommodation, which has resulted in issues of overcrowding and put great pressure on the housing market. Others include a sudden lateral influx of young children into education, public nuisance and homelessness.Footnote 41 This is why we have argued for the creation of structural facilities aimed at temporary residents, especially in housing (see Chap. 5).

Employers also have a responsibility for these facilities. If the housing, education or healthcare burden arising from labour migration exceeds the capacity of neighbourhoods, communities and regions, that affects the living situation of the existing population. This could be an argument for temporizing or reducing such migration, despite the economic interests at stake.

We therefore suggest taking into account local social problems resulting from temporary labour migration when issuing work permits. Currently a permit can be refused if an individual employer is unable to provide the applicant with suitable accommodation, but the collective social costs for a community or region associated with the arrival of large groups of labour migrants are not taken into account. We propose that these broader costs also be borne in mind when assessing individual applications for work permits for potential labour migrants from outside the EU/EFTA zone. For example, by considering whether there are adequate available facilities in such domains as housing, education and civic integrationFootnote 42 to integrate the migrants – and possibly their families as well – into local society.

7.2.6 Summary

  • We advise the Dutch government to end the use of educational qualifications and/or salary level as the principal criterion for the admission of migrant workers from outside the EU/EFTA zone, and instead consider actual labour-market needs. This means no longer seeking only or primarily to attract highly skilled migrants, but focusing upon all sectors of the economy in which there are labour shortages.

  • This approach is subject to the condition that the migration concerned be complementary. That is, it should meet a demonstrable need which cannot be satisfied by people from within the EU/EFTA zone.

  • In order to prevent these migrants from remaining when they are no longer in paid employment, the government should maintain a strong commitment to circularity.

  • Consider also taking into account the collective social costs for municipalities or regions when assessing work permit applications for employees from outside the EU/EFTA zone.

7.3 Family Migration: Respect for Private and Family Life with an Eye for Social Cohesion

This section looks at whether migration policy in respect of family formation can be adjusted in such a way that it places less pressure on social cohesion. The relevance of this question stems in part from the scale of family migration. Every year since the recession of 1973, this has accounted for the largest number of non-Dutch nationals settling in the Netherlands. Figures from Statistics Netherlands (Centraal Bureau voor de Statistiek, CBS) show that more than 800,000 family migrants have come to the country since the beginning of this century. Their demographic impact is therefore considerable. As a result of their arrival, the relatively modest group of fewer than 50,000 labour migrants from Turkey and Morocco in the early 1970s had grown to 800,000 people by 2020.Footnote 43

7.3.1 Family Reunification and Formation

We differentiate two forms of family migration: family reunification and family formation.Footnote 44 The former refers to the partner and/or the children of someone who has previously settled in the Netherlands – as a labour or asylum migrant, say – joining them here. They thus already had a family in their country of origin.Footnote 45 Family formation, by contrast, is when someone brings in a partner they did not have before they became lawfully resident in the Netherlands. In this case the person already living here – the so-called ‘sponsor’ – need not be a migrant; their ‘lawful residence’ could have begun at birth. According to Article 8 of the ECHR and Articles 7 and 9 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the EU, persons seeking to reunify their family or to form one can invoke the right to respect for family life.

In the Netherlands, an income requirement of 100% of the minimum wage currently applies to both forms of family migration.Footnote 46 In the case of family formation, both the sponsor and the immigrating partner must also be at least 21 years old.Footnote 47 The lower age limit for family reunification is 18 years.

Reunification always follows a previous form of migration. This does not necessarily apply to family formation. In many cases the sponsor was born in the Netherlands, but sometimes they are migrants themselves. A distinction can also be drawn between sponsors born in the Netherlands with a migrant background and those with a Dutch background.Footnote 48 By way of illustration, during the period 2007–2011 nearly 30% of the sponsors of migrants who came to the Netherlands for family formation had a Dutch backgroundFootnote 49 and in more than 40% of cases the migrant and the sponsor had the same country of origin.Footnote 50

7.3.2 Family Migration and Social Cohesion

Family formation can result in long-term chain migration. And when migrants in a vulnerable social position form families with partners who barely participate in Dutch society, if at all, this may undermine social cohesion. As can the fact that some migrant communities are strongly homogamous in terms of their partner choices (see Fig. 7.1), meaning that two people from the same origin group are involved in family formation. Homogamy in partner choice can thus result in substantial chain migration by people who are vulnerable socially and have difficulty finding their way in Dutch society.Footnote 51

Fig. 7.1
figure 1

Marriage or cohabitation with a partner from the same migrant background, by country of origin, 1 January 2016

© WRR (2020) | Source: Statistics Netherlands (CBS)

Full size image

Homogamy in partner choice is common amongst asylum migrants from Afghanistan, Somalia, Iraq, Eritrea and Syria as well,Footnote 52 also groups often in a vulnerable social position. There are differences between these groups, though. For instance, refugee status holders from Afghanistan who came to the Netherlands in the period 1995–1999 are somewhat better positioned in the labour market than their counterparts from Iraq and Somalia. In addition, research has shown that the educational performance of children from refugee groups is relatively good.Footnote 53 And we know that as the level of educational attainment rises, so the degree of homogamy in the choice of partner decreases.Footnote 54 As a result, family formation migration declines.

7.3.3 Stricter Requirements Have Boosted Labour-Market Participation

In order to enhance socio-economic participation by family migrants, over the years the Dutch government has steadily tightened the necessary requirements. In particular those for family formation. This is considered beneficial for both society and the migrants themselves.Footnote 55 In applying these measures, the government has sought to strike a balance between respecting the right to a private and family life and issues of integration. The three principal requirements imposedFootnote 56 are as follows.

  1. 1.

    In 2004, the minimum age for family formation was raised from 18 to 21 years. This applies to both partners. The minimum age for family reunification remains 18 years.

  2. 2.

    Raising the income requirement for sponsors. From the early 1990s they had to earn at least 70% of the so-called ‘social minimum’ for married couples – the minimum amount needed for basic subsistence – in order to bring family members to the Netherlands. The Aliens Act (Vreemdelingenwet) of 2000 raised this requirement to 100% of the national minimum wage,Footnote 57 and in 2004 it was further increased to 120% of the minimum wage. In 2010, however, the European Court of Justice ruled that the latter increase was in breach of the Family Reunification Directive and so the threshold was reverted to 100% of the minimum wage.Footnote 58

  3. 3.

    In 2006, a new Civic Integration Abroad Act (Wet inburgering buitenland) came into force. This stipulates that family migrants may not enter the Netherlands until they have acquired a basic knowledge of Dutch language and society . To prove that, candidates have to take an examination at a Dutch embassy or consulate, or by telephone with the aid of a speech-recognition computer.Footnote 59 This measure was introduced because of the strain on social cohesion within the Netherlands caused by problems in integrating.Footnote 60 In an advisory memorandum in response to a draft version of the Act, the ACVZ stated that “this argumentation is sufficient in principle to justify an obligation to integrate in advance … The structural problems with integration justify an unorthodox approach, one which appeals to the foreign national’s own responsibility and capabilities, and to their commitment towards Dutch society, and thereby lays a foundation for an effective integration process in the Netherlands.”Footnote 61

Research shows that tightening the age and income requirements has had a positive effect with regard to the labour-market participation of family migrants.Footnote 62 And the Civic Integration Abroad Act has improved their participation in Dutch society.Footnote 63 That law was amended in April 2011 to increase the required standard of language proficiency from level A1-minus to level A1 in the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR). This provides better preparation for the civic integration programme to be followed in the Netherlands, which has a pass requirement of level A2. In addition, the examination was expanded to include a test of literacy and reading comprehension. Evaluations show that these changes have resulted in family migrants having a better command of Dutch upon arrival in the Netherlands, and that they integrate somewhat more successfully once here. Their average educational attainment is also slightly higher now.Footnote 64

7.3.4 Are More Requirements Needed?

Despite the stricter criteria they have to meet, substantial numbers of family migrants still do not participate in the Dutch labour market. And they often live in isolation within their own origin communities.Footnote 65 This would seem to argue in favour of imposing additional requirements upon sponsors of family formation migration.Footnote 66 An educational criterion, for example, such as holding at least a basic qualification,Footnote 67 could counter early school-leaving. This is also a better predictor of active social participation than an income equivalent to at least 100% of the national minimum wage.Footnote 68 In addition, such a requirement would strengthen the position of young women from origin groups with a high degree of homogamy, making them less susceptible to external pressure from members of their family.Footnote 69

However, any measure of this kind would be in breach of the current EU Family Reunification Directive.Footnote 70 An earlier plea by the Dutch government to be allowed to impose an educational requirement for sponsors in the Netherlands failed to receive any support.Footnote 71 Criteria can be set regarding income (100% minimum wage) and age (21 years), but not education.

7.3.5 Summary

  • Tightening the age and income requirements has had a positive effect upon the social participation of family migrants.

  • Within the existing European legal framework, it is not possible to impose additional requirements – such as holding a basic educational qualification – upon the sponsors of migration for the purposes of family formation.

7.4 Asylum Migration: A More Active Government Approach

Since the mid-1980s, asylum has been one of the main factors sha** patterns of migration to the Netherlands. Many of the groups involved are relatively large, including refugees from Iran, Somalia, the former Yugoslavia, the former Soviet Union, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Eritrea. According to a rough and conservative estimate by Statistics Netherlands, based upon data from the 1980s onwards, approximately 500,000 people now living in the country either arrived as asylum migrants themselves or have at least one parent who did so.Footnote 72

Asylum is also a substantial contributor towards the increasing diversity of the nation’s migrant population. This is because these groups come from a multitude of countries of origin, many with no significant previous history of migration to the Netherlands. To a large extent, asylum migration contributed to the ‘new diversity’ which places pressure on social cohesion. The question here, then, is how well asylum policy can stay true to its core objective of providing refugees with a safe haven whilst at the same time taking account of issues related to social cohesion. Below we outline two possible responses to this dilemma.

7.4.1 More Invited Refugees

A first option is for the Netherlands to gain greater control over the refugees it receives. This can be done by, for example, increasing the proportion invited to the country. To illustrate what this means: some 30,600 asylum seekers arrived of their own accord in 2017, compared with 2265 who were invited under international resettlement schemes – the highest number since the resettlement policy was introduced in 1977. So for each one of them, approximately 15 asylum seekers came to the country uninvited.

No-one can be denied the right to claim protection as a refugee on his or her own initiative, but the Netherlands could, as part of a more effective system of dispersal within the EU as a whole, take a larger share of UNCHR refugees and limit the number of other asylum seekers it accepts. This would give it a greater say in who exactly comes to the country. Moreover, such an arrangement could ensure that even the most vulnerable have access to the Dutch asylum system. This might well increase public support for the presence of refugees, as well as acceptance of the related diversity. After all, asylum migration in its present form is highly selective. There are strong indications that it is primarily the strongest and most prosperous individuals who are currently gaining access to the European asylum system.Footnote 73 A broader invitation-based policy would also make it possible to respond more quickly to sudden crises, such as those involving the Yazidis in the Sinjar Mountains or at the Mória camp on Lesbos.

When inviting refugees, the question arises as to who is deemed eligible to come to the Netherlands. Can the government make a selection using criteria indicating that the person concerned is likely to be able participate well in Dutch society, or should it base itself exclusively upon humanitarian considerations such as vulnerability and risk of persecution? In our opinion, humanitarian determinants should always be paramount but other factors may play a subsidiary role. To an extent, this is in fact already standard practice. Since 2005, for example, ‘integration potential’ (see Box 7.2) has been one of the criteria used in the selection of invited refugees.Footnote 74

Box 7.2: Integration Potential as an Additional Criterion for Invitation

The basic starting point when inviting refugees to the Netherlands is their vulnerability as individuals. The Immigration and Naturalization Service (Immigratie- en Naturalisatiedienst, IND) obtains information about this from UNCHR reports and often also from the Regional Development and Protection Programme (RDPP) of the European Commission. For example, the service examines whether people have been victims of torture and to what extent their lives are under threat in the country where they are currently located. However, it does also take ‘integration potential’ into account when choosing which countries to invite refugees from.

The UNCHR office in the selected country nominates candidates likely to be eligible for resettlement in the Netherlands. To help with this, the IND prepares a so-called ‘pre-mission questionnaire’ as one of its selection tools. Interviews are then held with the nominees, covering such topics as medical, work-related or religious issues. Their own expectations of resettlement and integration potential are also discussed.

In a 2006 submission to parliament, the then Minister of Justice listed a number of negative indicators of integration potential which could lead to a nominee being rejected: “Not being prepared to learn the Dutch language and integrate into Dutch society, displaying inappropriate conduct, intent to cause social unrest or holding militant/fundamentalist views that could give rise to undesirable behaviour.”Footnote 75 At the interview, the IND officer also tries to ascertain whether resettlement in the Netherlands would actually be in the candidate’s best interests given that it might involve them leaving behind an established network in their current country of residence. Conversely, already having contacts in the Netherlands is often seen as an advantage.

Refugees’ family situation can also play a role. For example, large sections of the Dutch population are open to taking in families with children but would prefer not to accept large groups of young men.Footnote 76 Due to increasing feelings of insecurity, the Canadian government decided in 2015 that Syrian families and vulnerable refugees would be given priority over single men for resettlement in that country.Footnote 77

The workability of this system of resettlement by invitation is subject to two conditions. The first is better reception facilities for refugees in their regions of origin,Footnote 78 which in turn will require good European and international co-operation.Footnote 79 With such facilities in place, it should be possible to substantially shift the ratio of invited refugees to ad-hoc asylum seekers.

Were other European countries to adopt the same approach, moreover, this system could mobilize the financial resources needed for a better, more generous reception in the region. The entire budget of the UNHCR in 2015 was €4.7 billion euros,Footnote 80 from which it accommodated more than 12 million international refugees outside Europe. Even if the agency had spent every penny on those activities, that would still have amounted to only about €400 per person. By comparison, in 2018 a one-year stay at an asylum reception centre in the Netherlands cost around €27,900 per person. With 20,500 people submitting an initial application for asylum in that year, total spending on these facilities reached €590 million.Footnote 81

A second condition is that it must always remain possible to claim asylum in the Netherlands itself. In this respect, closer co-operation between European countries is desirable. It is also important that various weaknesses in the EU legislation be ironed out, such as the regulations concerning the so-called Dublin System, asylum seekers from safe countries and repatriation policy.Footnote 82

7.4.2 More Consideration of Absorption Capacity

A second option for asylum policy is to give greater consideration to Dutch society’s ability to incorporate these new migrants. Sudden peaks in asylum migration, in particular, often polarize communities. Although, incidentally, the opposite also happens: local authorities and residents are sometimes disappointed when reception centres that are well integrated within their communities close due to a decline in demand. The fluctuating nature of asylum migration entails a permanent process of upscaling and downscaling, whereby facilities and professional know-how repeatedly have to be restored and renewed.Footnote 83

Just about everyone agrees that the government should consider absorption capacity as part of its approach to asylum policy. The question, though, is how.

In this respect we recommend examining the German experience with numerical targets (see Box 7.3). A number of considerations are relevant here. In the first place, setting targets might open up explicit political debate about how many asylum seekers the Netherlands can accept each year. This would avoid giving the impression that the country has lost control of asylum migration and could thus bolster public support for accepting refugees.Footnote 84 Secondly, it would assist with the processing of asylum claims and allow the creation of more permanent reception facilities. At present, every influx forces the Dutch government to improvise anew with regard to reception facilities, the processing of applications and housing allocations. Combined with a systematic policy of resettlement by invitation, taking in refugees would become less of a rollercoaster ride, with huge peaks and troughs, and the arrival and reception of refugees could be better anticipated.

Box 7.3: Germany: Establishing Numerical Targets

In Germany, which had to deal with more than 1.2 million asylum claims in 2 years (2015 and 2016),Footnote 85 a discussion arose about how much migration of this kind the country could handle given the economic and social effort it required. An answer to this question was formulated in the coalition agreement between the social-democratic SPD and the Christian-democratic CDU/CSU alliance in 2018, which set a numerical target of 180,000–220,000 asylum migrants per year.Footnote 86

This target is not a strict upper limit, but a policy objective with no legally binding effect. A rigid cap on refugee numbers would violate the German constitution, human rights treaties and EU law,Footnote 87 as well as the Geneva Refugee Convention because it could lead to ‘refoulement’.Footnote 88

Despite this limitation, the actual number of asylum claims in Germany did remain below the target figure in the first 2 years after it was set, 2018 and 2019.Footnote 89 The country took a variety of measures to achieve this, amongst them supporting the reception of refugees in their home region, expanding the list of so-called ‘safe countries’, committing to better protection of the EU’s external borders and attempting to reduce the causes of flight.Footnote 90

Once again, establishing and achieving a target of this kind would require improved European and international co-operation, particularly with regard to the adequate reception of refugees in their regions of origin. In addition, it might lead to increased efforts to tackle the root causes of asylum migration so that people do not embark on a dangerous journey to Europe in the first place. But there is also a risk that could encourage a one-sided focus upon guarding Europe’s external borders – a narrow interpretation we insistently warn against.Footnote 91

7.4.3 Summary

  • The Netherlands can gain greater control over asylum migration by increasing the proportion of refugees invited to the country. Humanitarian determinants should always be paramount in their selection, but their ‘integration potential’ may also be considered.

  • The government should investigate ways to take better account of Dutch society’s capacity to incorporate asylum migrants. The German experience with numerical targets might be a useful guide in this respect.

  • In both cases the policy’s success is highly dependent upon improved European and international co-operation.

7.5 Conclusion

How can migration policy play a role in mitigating the negative effects of international migration on social cohesion in the Netherlands? That has been question at the heart of this chapter. In addressing it we have distinguished three main types of migration, each with its own underlying rationale: labour, family and asylum migration. We then went on to look at the policy scope available to the Netherlands within the European and international legal order. This revealed that the current supranational policy frameworks provide no room to impose additional requirements upon family migration. There are, however, more possibilities for European variations in labour migration and asylum policy.

Some of the options outlined in this chapter are worth exploring further. Briefly, they are as follows.

  • Labour migration policy. Consider making it a condition that this be complementary migration – in other words, that it meet a demonstrable need that cannot be fulfilled by people from within the EU/EFTA zone. And in order to prevent these migrants from staying on when they are no longer in paid employment, make a strong commitment to circularity. Furthermore, consider also taking into account the collective social costs for municipalities or regions when assessing work permit applications.

  • Asylum policy. Consider increasing the proportion of refugees invited to the country, rather than arriving ad hoc. And explore ways to take better account of Dutch society’s capacity to absorb asylum migrants.