Dutch consider sending failed asylum seekers from Africa to Uganda

18 Oct 2024

The Netherlands is looking at the possibility of sending failed asylum seekers from Africa to Uganda.

The Netherlands is looking at the possibility of sending failed asylum seekers from Africa to Uganda. It’s an idea that has the fingerprints of the now-abandoned British idea to send migrants to neighbouring Rwanda and comes as European countries are looking around for solutions to long-running migratory pressure.

In fact, the number of illegal attempts to enter the European Union fell by 40 per cent in the first nine months of this year, according to latest data from the EU’s border agency. But the perception amongst the electorate in many European countries of an influx crisis has pushed migration to the top of the agenda, and governments are rushing to respond.

Arriving at a summit of EU leaders yesterday, where migration was on the agenda, the Dutch Prime Minister, Dick Schoof, said the Netherlands has a “serious plan”, but admitted that “a lot still needs to be worked out”.

The concept is different from Italy’s agreement with Albania, which involves processing the asylum applications of migrants rescued at sea. By contrast, the Netherlands, and others such as Denmark, are looking at what to do with those who have reached Europe, but have had their right to stay denied.

At the moment, only one in five failed asylum seekers is actually deported from the European Union, according to EU data. That’s often because, unless the EU has a deal – a so-called ‘returns agreement’ – with that country, an individual cannot be sent back to where they came from.

One idea, gaining traction amongst EU countries, is to set up ‘return hubs’ where migrants could be sent if their home country will not have them back. The Dutch idea, not yet fully fleshed out, appears to be along those lines.

Schoof said the Netherlands could create “hubs in the region of origin. That could also apply to Uganda [in east Africa]. But Uganda also really needs to be figured out and worked out. But it could easily fit into this new approach.”

The new right-far-right coalition government has promised to get tough on immigration, but until now sources have avoided naming the countries with which the government is in discussions.

However, this week, whilst on a visit to east Africa, Dutch Trade Minister, Reinette Klever, from the far-right Freedom Party, revealed a migrant scheme with Uganda is being considered.

Previous EU attempts to set up hubs of this kind came to nothing because of legal complications and a lack of interest from African governments.

According to the Dutch public broadcaster, NOS, the Ugandan government is “open to talks”.

The President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, has tasked her new Migration Commissioner-designate to “steer reflections on operation solutions”.

Any new schemes must respect “EU principles and values, obligations under international law, and the protection of fundamental rights”, she said.

The EU largely wrote off the British Rwanda scheme, which proposed sending migrants – regardless of their asylum status – for permanent rehousing in Africa. At the time the EU’s home affairs commissioner dismissed various schemes aimed at ‘externalising’ migration as achieving “not very promising results”.

Late last night, the Dutch prime minister faced criticism from journalists that the Netherlands’ scheme was “improvisation”, not “innovation”.

“It is an idea that we are going to work out …[it] is not yet a decision,” he said as he left the summit in Brussels.