Prime minister Mark Rutte has told reporters he expects measures agreed at the EU summit in Brussels will lead to a reduction in the number of refugees, after member states reached a deal on strengthening the block’s borders.

Rutte said that for the first time in the 12 years he has attended EU meetings, he felt that there was no longer any distrust of other countries motives and that the willingness to better manage migration flows was ‘really something new’.

‘The proof of the pudding is in the eating,’ the prime minister said in English. ‘This is an important summit. There is absolute momentum and we have to work together to keep that.’ Nevertheless, much depends on whether progress is really made at the following summits in March and June, the prime minister said.

Rutte is under pressure back home to come up with concrete measures to reduce the number of refugees ahead of the March provincial elections.

Last year 45,000 applies for asylum in the Netherlands and officials expect more to come this year, facts which far right parties have been quick to turn into political capital.

Pilot projects

Measures agreed by European ministers so far involve two pilot projects, commission president Ursula von Leyen told reporters.

‘We will provide an integrated package of mobile and stationary infrastructure – from cars to cameras, from watchtowers to electronic surveillance,’ she said.

‘This requires EU funding.. and of course, it also requires national funding. Then we will also launch pilot projects that focus on border procedures in order to showcase best practices – so registration, fast and fair asylum procedures, how to deal with returns.’

Frontex, the European border and coastguard agency, recorded some 330,000 irregular arrivals in the EU in 2022, up 64% compared to 2021.