Dutch MPs will attempt this week to patch up the long-awaited bill to tighten up the laws on asylum as foreign affairs minister David van Weel’s Christmas deadline looms.

Although there is broad support across parliament for the broad thrust of the measures, parties are divided over details such as whether illegal residency should be made a criminal offence.

Van Weel has tried to reassure parties that offering refugees a bowl of soup or similar humanitarian gestures would not be viewed as a criminal act, after the far-right PVV party passed an amendment making it an offence to help illegal aliens.

The amendment was enough for the centre-right Christian Democrats (CDA) to drop their support for the whole bill in July. The smaller ChristenUnie party have also called for the amendment to be taken out.

The three parties involved in the negotiations to form the next government, including the CDA, are divided on the issue.

Compromise

CDA MP Bart van den Brink said on Monday his party was prepared to accept a compromise that would protect people who helped refugees from prosecution.

“European jurisprudence has established that it would only apply to people who do not co-operate with efforts to remove them,” he said.

The progressive-liberal D66 have opposed the entire bill from the outset and are against criminalising illegal residency, but the right-wing liberal VVD, which includes Van Weel, are strong supporters and have accused other parties of dragging their feet over the bill.

PVV leader Geert Wilders has said he will not tolerate any further watering down of the bill, which was a centrepiece of his plans to realise the “harshest asylum policy ever” when the last government took office in July last year.

Wilders walked out of the coalition after 11 months in frustration at his coalition partners, including the VVD, when they blocked his demands to speed up the process. The PVV’s votes are needed to pass the law in the senate.

But in a committee debate on Monday, PVV MP Marina Vondeling said the party was prepared to drop the ban on helping refugees because it was more important to crack down on illegal residency.

Van Weel has argued that making it a crime for people to stay in the Netherlands after they have been refused asylum would make it easier to repatriate them, but experts have disputed the claim.

Last week legal experts told parliament that it would not change the situation of people who want to go back but are not accepted by their countries of origin.

The Hague‘s police chief, Karin Krukkert, said it risked creating a revolving-door scenario because refugees who are jailed for living in the country would be immediately committing another offence as soon as they were released from prison.

“In that case, prison will not solve the crime,” she said.