THE EUROPEAN Commission has asked the Dutch government to clarify plans by the small town of Vaals, in the southeast of the country, to refuse right of residence to EU nationals without a job or enough assets to support themselves.
At the end of last week, the town council in Vaals, in the province of Limburg, on the borders of both Germany and Belgium, announced that the new regulation would come into effect from the beginning of September.
The council said it was being forced by financial circumstances to implement a little-known EU guideline allowing it to exclude foreign nationals without jobs because, of the 300 people living on social welfare in its town of 10,000 inhabitants, some 40 per cent were EU nationals.
As a result, it was now facing an untenable annual bill of more than €400,000 for social welfare payments.
However, it now appears that Vaals may not be allowed to implement the new rule without first explaining itself to – and perhaps getting clearance from – Brussels.
A spokesman for the European Commission said it was concerned that barring EU citizens on such grounds might amount to a violation of the rules governing free movement of citizens within the union. As a result, it had asked the government in The Hague for clarification, he said.
Announcing the ban in Vaals last week, Alderman Jean-Paul Kompier specifically mentioned Polish and Romanian immigrants, who often found it difficult to get work, he said, because they tended not to speak Dutch.
There have been tensions between the Dutch and Polish governments since a Dutch minister recently suggested expelling EU migrants from newer member states who had been unemployed for more than three months.