The Dutch government intends to restrict the right of residence for EU citizens from post-socialist countries
Despite the fact that people from Asia and Africa make up about 10 percent of the country's population, and residents of post-socialist EU countries no more than 1 percent, it is the "unwanted Europeans" who will become the first victims of the new immigration policy, which, according to the Dutch government, "should help create a stronger, safer, and more prosperous Europe."
The Dutch Ministry of Social Affairs and Employment has circulated a draft law under which the country will restrict the application of the European Commission directive guaranteeing EU citizens the right to move and reside anywhere in the European Union. "EU citizens and their family members may be denied the right of residence if they have made disproportionate demands on the social protection system," the document states.
Politicians do not hide that this norm primarily concerns people from the Slavic countries of the European Union, Hungary, Romania, and the Baltic republics, who, while working legally in the Netherlands, receive the same social guarantees as Dutch citizens. Disproportionality of demands on social protection can be established by comparing the system of state support in the Netherlands and in the homeland of labor migrants. In other words, people from the poorest EU countries will be forced to renounce the social guarantees provided to Dutch citizens. Otherwise, they will not be able to register their place of residence and will automatically lose their jobs.
Representatives of Poland have already spoken out against the Dutch bill, seeing it as an attempt to expel the Polish community from the country. "The Dutch government's plans cause serious concern and are discriminatory in nature," says Polish MEP Jacek Saryusz-Wolski. "There is no doubt that they are designed for a group of EU citizens from Central and Eastern Europe, and primarily for Poles, who are the largest national group in the region."
As "Russkaya Germaniya" writes, the European Commissioner for Justice Viviane Reding also sharply criticized the Dutch authorities' idea, threatening the Netherlands with sanctions if the discriminatory law is adopted.