“Proposed Measures in the Netherlands to Control Migration and Limit Population to Under 20 Million”

The Dutch population will be kept to under 20million with limits put in place to ‘get a grip on migration’ under targets being considered by the country’s hard-right government. 

The government’s demographic development commission recommended a population ceiling of 19 to 20million residents by 2050, Dutch News reports. 

The cabinet ‘supports the need to work towards that scenario and to get a grip on migration,’ immigration minister Marjolein Faber and social affairs minister Eddy van Hijum said in a briefing to MPs on Tuesday. 

This comes after the commission said earlier this year that a moderate growth would be the best option to ensure economic prosperity as its population of 18million ages, but Faber and van Hijum warned that this would still have negative consequences for public services.

The hard-right government had chosen the ‘toughest ever package of measures to limit asylum’ and will opt for a ‘more selective and targeted policy for all other forms of migration, including labour and education-related movement’, the ministers said.

Faber and van Hijum also requested more research into ways to control immigration, which they said was ‘clearly necessary’.

There have been repeated warnings by statisticians and economists, who said that the Netherlands needs foreign workers to combat its workforce gaps. 

The government’s advisory body on migration previously said that the country would need about three million additional immigrants to work and pay taxes by 2040 – but the council said that this was not a realistic option. 

Instead, current residents in the Netherlands would have to work more hours or retire later.

The Dutch population grew by nearly 40,000 between in the first six months of this year, according to figures by CBS, the country’s national statistics agency. 

This is one-third less than during the year prior and was reflective to low numbers of immigrants, an increase in emigration and more deaths, the agency said.

About 138,000 people moved to the Netherlands in the first six months of 2024, while 92,000 left, meaning there was a net increase in immigration of 46,000 – which is roughly 25 per cent less than during the same period in 2023.

This comes as the Swiss hard-right People’s Party put forward similar plans to cap Switzerland’s population as part of an immigration crackdown.

The Swiss People’s Party (SVP) – which is the largest in the ruling coalition of four parties – launched the anti-immigration initiative last year, which was signed by more than 115,000 residents and could be on the ballot as soon as 2026.

The initiative demands that the population of those permanently living in Switzerland doesn’t exceed ten million before 2050 after the country first recorded nearly 9 million residents in 2023. 

As soon as population numbers reach nine and a half million, the initiative demands that ‘temporarily admitted persons [foreigners] shall not receive a residence or settlement permit, Swiss citizenship or any other right of residence.’

After 2050, the initiative demands that the Federal Council sets a new immigration limit based on the excess of births.

Swiss finance minister Karin Keller-Sutter has called the SVP campaign ‘dangerous’ and a threat to businesses’ ability to attract top talent from abroad.

She said at a Bloomberg event: ‘When people talk about immigration or migration, what they mean is asylum seekers. They don’t really mean the qualified staff in hospitals, the doctors we need. We couldn’t work without them.’

The population cap won’t differentiate between workers arriving from abroad and asylum seekers, which would clash with the needs of Swiss business who are reliant on talent from abroad. 

While Keller-Sutter acknowledged that it was a ‘responsibility of Swiss businesses to try to recruit Swiss people whenever possible’, Switzerland’s aging population was making this more difficult. 

In 2023, about 180,000 people immigrated into Switzerland, most of them moving for work.  

More than every fourth resident in Switzerland is a foreigner, which is one of the highest rates in Europe.