The Netherlands intends to place refugee children in detention as part of the EU Asylum and Migration Pact. Eleven human rights organisations have called on the House of Representatives to amend this measure. The House of Representatives’ Committee on Asylum and Migration recently discussed the Pact.
On Thursday 12 February, the House of Representatives considered how the Netherlands will implement the EU Asylum and Migration Pact into its own legislation, also known as the ‘Asylum and Migration Pact Implementation Act 2026’. Various organisations submitted their views on the implementation act via position papers, to which MPs posed questions.
The Migration Pact comes into force in the European Union on 12 June. The pact centres on the introduction of a common European asylum system. This will involve stricter border controls and an accelerated asylum procedure for asylum seekers from ‘safe’ countries. There will also be mandatory solidarity between Member States, whereby countries will take in a proportionate number of asylum seekers or can ‘buy out’ this obligation by funding a Member State to take in more asylum seekers.
The pact consists mainly of EU regulations that apply directly, but Member States may also apply their own national rules, unless this is explicitly excluded in a regulation. The Netherlands has 120 days left to draft the implementing legislation.
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