Dublin II in the Netherlands

last update: 13/02/2011

Beginning of February 2011 the minister for Immigration and Asylum decided that “Greek Dublin-II cases”  will be dealt with in the Netherlands, so no suspension of the asylum procedures any more.

Early October 2010 the Dutch minister of Justice had already announced that the Netherlands would definitely not send asylum seekers back to Greece. In the Netherlands there are approximately 2000 asylum seekers who have been registered in Greece as first EU-country of arrival. With this decision the Netherlands complied with a letter sent by the European Court of Human Rights to the Dutch minister. The minister expected that after the Netherlands, other EU-countries would have problems returning asylum seekers to Greece. Earlier in 2010 the Netherlands had already followed the European Court of Human Rights by stopping to deport Somali refugees to Greece.

Besides this, the Dutch Supreme Court decided in February 2011 to temporally stop the expulsion of  Dublin-II cases to Italy.

Be careful: since the last elections the Netherlands have a farright-wing government. So, except for Dublin-II cases, we expect deportations to countries of origin to increase in the next months.

Dutch Council for Refugees
Surinameplein 122
Postbus 2894, 1000 CW Amsterdam
T (020) 346 7266  
F (020) 617 81 55
asielprocedure(at)vluchtelingenwerk.nl
www.vluchtelingenwerk.nl