Budgets and funding
Joint Netherlands-Belgium letter hints at trouble for solidarity pool
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Joint Netherlands-Belgium letter hints at trouble for solidarity pool
A joint letter sent from the Dutch and Belgian migration and asylum ministers signals the two countries might consider withholding financial support to the EU’s Annual Solidarity Pool amid their grievances over irregular migrants already on their territory.
In the letter, which was not publicly announced but was published on the Netherlands government website, the two ministers complain that a large number of the asylum seekers on their territories arrive there via ‘secondary movement’.
Claiming over-strained public services, the two make it clear their countries’ contributions to the Solidarity Pool are contingent on “substantial progress and the sustainable application of the existing Dublin acquis, with a clear action plan for each Member State and concrete, measurable benchmarks for progress by June 2026.”
In other words: if member states on the EU’s frontiers do not agree to receive irregular migrants returned via Dublin transfers, wealthier Northern member states could withhold their financial contributions – undermining the entire system.
“Solidarity must go hand in hand with responsibility” write the two ministers, going on to talk about the “challenges caused by… secondary movements” to the Netherlands and Belgium. The language appears to imply that the two countries might see themselves as under sufficient “migratory pressure” to be considered recipients, rather than contributors, of solidarity funds.
In October, the Commission delayed publication of a report that would have formalised the Annual Solidarity Pool.
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