Hague Letter: Dutch perceptions of inflow by foreigners skewed
Scaremongering by xenophobic right-wing parties distorts reality
1
Dutch
right-wing anti-immigrant politician Geert Wilders: warned that Dutch
workers faced being priced out of their jobs. Photograph: Martijn
Beekman/AFP/Getty Images
It’s an
indication of the enormous gap between perception and reality when it
comes to potentially explosive issues such as immigration that a new
survey in the Netherlands shows EU migrants making up just 3 per cent of the country’s benefit claimants at the end of 2014.
Yes, the research is a year old, but 2014 was a particularly interesting year in terms of free movement within the EU. Romania and Bulgaria
joined on January 1st, 2007, and existing states were given seven years
to prepare for full access by the new members to their domestic labour
markets.
So it was that in the run-up to Christmas 2013, right-wing anti-immigrant politician Geert Wilders
was to be found leading a protest outside the Romanian embassy in The
Hague, warning not just that Dutch workers faced being priced out of
their jobs but that crime rates would rise as well.
For good measure, Wilders demanded that Romania and
Bulgaria should be “kicked out of the EU” because they had, in his view,
never been ready for accession and were still struggling with endemic
corruption and organised crime.
That anti-immigrant scaremongering has achieved exactly what was intended. It has propelled Wilders and his Freedom Party
to the top of the opinion polls – virtually a lone bulwark, as their
followers would have it, against “an Islamic invasion” from Iraq and Syria.
There’s no doubt about it, blurring the definitions
between “anti-Islam”, “anti-immigrant” and “anti-EU” has been fertile
ground for the Dutch right – as it has for Marine Le Pen in France and for Nigel Farage in the UK – successfully souring the national mood against all “outsiders”.
But then look at the reality as illustrated in this
week’s survey from the National Statistics Office – which shows that
neither Romanians nor Bulgarians feature in the top-three EU
nationalities who’ve moved to live in the Netherlands since 2007.
The survey shows there were 439,000 nationals of
other EU countries living here at the start of 2007 – and, since then,
200,000 more have arrived.
Ex-pat population
Poles, who joined the EU in 2004, are now the largest ex-pat population at 180,000, as against a Dutch population of roughly 17 million. Next come Germans, at 125,000. Third are Belgians at 50,000, and in a surprising fourth place come the British, at fewer than 50,000.
The bottom line is that the number of EU nationals
living in the Netherlands has increased by 47 per cent since 2007 – but
they still only make up 3.8 per cent of the population.
So not alone have Romanians and Bulgarians not
overrun the Netherlands, but this survey also shows that those who have
come here are not only no more likely to claim benefits than any other
EU nationality – they are actually less likely to claim benefits.
It shows that six out of 10 EU migrants are
employed, a figure which has been pretty stable for years, with a good
deal of the balance accounted for by students and non-working spouses.
And when it comes to migrants from Central and Eastern Europe, that figure of 60 per cent employed actually increases to 75 per cent.
The simple fact is that – according to the National
Statistics Office – just 3 per cent of social security claims in the
Netherlands are made by nationals of other EU countries. On top of
which, EU citizens have no entitlement to benefits in the three months
after they arrive here.
Dutch abroad
At the same time, figures published in May showed that nearly 500,000 Dutch live in other EU states with the biggest ex-pat populations in Belgium and Germany.
Most worrying about this disconnect between
perception and reality is that a good many Dutch appear to be losing the
will to distinguish between fellow EU citizens from other countries,
third-country refugees fleeing war zones and Islamist militants hidden
among the influx who would, indeed, do them harm.
The creation of a “them and us” mentality is playing
into a situation in which 40,000 refugees have arrived here from the
Middle East during the year – sparking protests and even reprehensible
rioting such as we saw in the town of Geldermalsen last week.
As the Netherlands prepares to take over the
presidency of the EU on January 1st, it’s worth noting that Wilders –
and not prime minister Mark Rutte – has just been voted Politician of the Year by reputable TV current affairs programme EenVandaag.
Wilders won, say the programme-makers, because he
was “the only politician with an eye to public concerns about asylum
seekers”. That’s a crying shameLees hier het artikel in The Irish Times: http://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/europe/hague-letter-dutch-perceptions-of-inflow-by-foreigners-skewed-1.2473016
Zie ook:
Merkel and her moral stance on the refugee crisis
World review of the year: The refugee crisis will make or break the German chancellor
http://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/europe/merkel-and-her-moral-stance-on-the-refugee-crisis-1.2478935Bleak Christmas for Christian Syrians in historic Turkish town
Many Syriac refugees in Mardin chose to live outside Christian camps due to jihadist fears
http://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/middle-east/bleak-christmas-for-christian-syrians-in-historic-turkish-town-1.2478878Interessant artikel? Deel het eens met uw netwerk en help mee met het verspreiden van de bekendheid van dit blog. Er staan wellicht nog meer artikelen op dit weblog die u zullen boeien. Kijk gerust eens rond. Zelf graag wat willen plaatsen? Mail dan webmaster@vreemdelingenrecht.com In verband met geldwolven die denken geld te kunnen claimen op krantenartikelen die op een blog als deze worden geplaatst maar na meestal een dag voor de krantenlezers aan leeswaardigheid hebben ingeboet terwijl wij vreemdelingenrecht specialisten ze soms wel nog jaren gebruiken om er een kopie van te maken voor een zaak ga ik over tot het plaatsen van alleen het eerste stukje. Ja ik weet het: de kans dat u doorklikt is geringer dan wanneer het hele artikel hier staat en een kopie van het orgineel maken handig kan zijn voor uw zaak. Wilt u zelf wat overnemen van dit weblog. Dat mag. Zet er alleen even een link bij naar het desbetreffende artikel zodat mensen niet alleen dat wat u knipt en plakt kunnen lezen maar dat ook kunnen doen in de context.
