A draft bill drawn up by the VVD to introduce income and criminal record checks on people from Aruba, Curaçao and Sint Maarten who want to move to the Netherlands will not be supported by Labour MPs, the Volkskrant says on Thursday.

The bill should have been debated in parliament on Wednesday night but a debate on Ukraine led to it being removed from the agenda.

However, Labour MP Roelof van Laar told the Volkskrant his party cannot support the plan.

‘The draft bill goes further than the original aim – namely to prevent disadvantaged and criminal Antillean Dutch nationals moving to the Netherlands,’ he said. ‘This is out of proportion and we have fundamental objections to it.’

Tension

This, the paper says, will be a new source of tension within the coalition because the coalition agreement includes a pledge to impose conditions on the migration of all Antilleans to the Netherlands.

Many Labour MPs also object to the cabinet’s plans to make it a criminal offence to be in the Netherlands without proper papers.

Last month, an influential Dutch commission said the plan is ‘incompatible with international treaties’ on racial discrimination.

The Meijers Commission, which focuses on immigration policy, said the proposal involves treating Dutch nationals in different ways depending on their race.

At least five international and two EU treaties render the proposal unworkable. These include the UN treaty to ban all forms of racial discrimination, the commission said.