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Netherlands: Border patrols

01 March 1997

The Koninklijke Marechaussee (Kmar, Gendarmerie) "flying squads" operating behind borders under the new Schengen regime stopped 26,110 aliens in 1996 who attempted to enter the Netherlands without valid papers. They were returned to Belgium and Germany. The number of confiscated forged travel documents rose from 2,530 in 1995 to 5,810 in 1996. The flying squads, or Mobiel Toezicht Vreemdelingen (MTV, Mobile Monitoring of Aliens) as they are officially called, consist of 480 marechaussees who last year checked 767,000 people in cars, trains and ships entering the country. The Kmar expect to increase the effectivity of border controls at Schiphol airport in 1997 by introducing machines that can automatically read passports and check the Schengen Information System.

On the weekend of 5-6 April (12.00 on Saturday to 17.00 on Sunday) the Dutch police and Koninklijke Marechaussee border guards stopped about 1,500 Turkish and Kurdish people from entering the country. This appears to be related to an unsolved arson attack in The Hague on March 26, in which six members of a Kurdish family died. For the first time the Dutch government used a clause in the Schengen Agreement, Article 2 para 2, which enables it to refuse entry to selected groups of people on grounds of national security or public order. It seems that this is the first time that a country under the Schengen Treaty systematically refused entry to a selected category of people based on nationality. While many of the refused persons did not carry valid ID's, always a ground for refusing entry, Dutch MPs have voiced concern over the closure of the national borders for a selected category of people.