Crisis talks between the two Dutch coalition parties about what to do with people who have been refused asylum in the Netherlands continued deep into Wednesday night without result.

At around 03.30, Labour leader Diederik Samsom left the talks in the prime minister’s offices and told waiting reporters: ‘some things are more complicated’. Prime minister Mark Rutte also described the matter as ‘complicated’. ‘We are going to talk calmly about it again tomorrow,’ he said.

The official Dutch policy is to evict people who have failed to qualify as refugees from refugee centres and to encourage them to return home. However, thousands have no paperwork or argue they cannot go back because it would be unsafe.

The Council of Europe has now told the Netherlands it has to provide bed and board for these undocumented people, but that it is up to the Dutch to decide how to do this.

The coalition Labour party wants to continue providing emergency accommodation but the VVD does not.

The Dutch papers on Thursday say the refugee issue is the latest crisis to hit the cabinet. ‘Illegals are driving the cabinet apart,’ is the headline on the front page of the Volkskrant. ‘Crisis in cabinet,’ states the AD.

Criticism

The Dutch policy has come under fire from a number of different organisations. Last December, United Nations representatives criticised the way ‘politicans are scoring points in the migration debate at the expense of homeless, illegal migrants’.

A legal case involving eight homeless migrants in December resulted in Amsterdam city council being told it had to provide them with bed and board.

According to the Volkskrant, there are around 60,000 undocumented refugees in the Netherlands who were originally asylum seekers.