Geert Wilders floats flying Dutch rejected asylum seekers to Uganda

The leader of the right-wing Party for Freedom Geert Wilders proposed flying rejected asylum seekers to the Netherlands to an East African country, as Patriots leaders met in Brussels ahead of the European Council summit on Thursday.

Wilders aired the idea to reporters when arriving at Maison de Hongrie in the Belgian capital for a meeting of far-right leaders ahead of EU summit.

“My party is considering, after visiting Uganda, that we could send people to that country, after all the procedures in the Netherlands, instead of leaving them staying in Holland, often illegally,” Wilders said.

Wilders considers that the Dutch coalition government, which includes Party for Freedom, is “working out plans to make the [Dutch] policy [on migration] a lot tougher”.

Asylum seekers from African countries who have exhausted all legal avenues to stay in the Netherlands would be deported to Uganda under the proposals, which were first touted on Wednesday by Dutch Minister of Foreign Trade and Development Cooperation Reinette Klever, during a working visit to Uganda. 

The plan is “in its early stages” but the Ugandan government does not oppose it and will be offered financial compensation in return, Wilders said.

Endorsement of the Italy-Albania protocol

This seems to be one of the possible “new ways and solutions” that many EU countries would like to develop to manage migration. 

Wilders and other Patriots leaders also praised the Italy-Albania protocol on their way into the meeting. The protocol allows for processing of asylum seekers in a centre on Albanian territory, while they wait for their requests to be answered by Italian authorities. The project started this week with 12 asylum seekers.

“I’m proud of the Italians for how they do it, but also of many other countries”, says Wilders. “Indeed, that’s a very good example, and we should take an example,” he said.

Viktor Orbán, Hungary Prime minister considered the deal a “good one”, while Marine Le Pen, President of French Rassemblement National said that “anything contributing to reducing irregular immigration and aiming to manage the flows goes in the right direction”.

Patriots leaders don’t trust EU Commission on migration

Le Pen also said she did not trust the EU on the migration issue, while she appreciated what some national governments are currently doing.

The Commission has proposed ten focus points for discussion over migration during the summit including building partnerships with third non-EU countries and increasing returns of migrants potentially using return hubs outside the EU.

But this did not go far enough for Le Pen. 

“For the moment, I have not seen many very clear proposals. All these remain vague intentions. And once again, as I know full well that the Commission ideologically wants this immigration: I do not have confidence in it to resolve the problem,” she said.

The statement released after the Patriots meeting recalled “that protecting the external borders of the EU is a duty” and criticized the Commission’s “policy of promoting uncontrolled immigration”.

ADVERTISEMENT

This was the first meeting of this kind among Patriots, a group comprising 11 political parties from different EU countries – but its leaders want to make it a regular appointment before each Council summit.