Monthly asylum seeker numbers have dropped steadily since October 2015, according to the latest figures from the national statistics office CBS.

The CBS says there were just over 3,300 asylum seekers registered in the Netherlands in January 2016. This is about a quarter of the peak last October, when just over 11,700 people arrived in the country.

But the January figures are also roughly twice as high as January a year ago, when almost 1,600 people were registered.

Europe

Mark Rutte, the Dutch prime minister and currently leading the country’s presidency of the EU, has put tackling migration top of the agenda. He said again earlier this week that refugee numbers coming to Europe must be drastically reduced and that this was a top priority for the Dutch presidency of the EU.

Last week Rutte said his approach was working, during a widely-reported press conference with Turkish prime minister Ahmet Davutoğlu: ‘Where we were talking about thousands a day just a week ago, we are now talking about a few hundred a day,’ he said.

But there has been some debate over these figures. A spokesperson for EU border management agency Frontex told the NRC that it is ‘too soon’ to talk about a drop in figures because ‘there are continuous daily fluctuations. So we report quarterly.’