THE HAGUE, 19/02/03 - A narrow parliamentary majority yesterday called on caretaker Immigration Minister Hilbrand Nawijn to introduce a measure after all whereby asylum-seekers who have already been in the Netherlands longer than five years have a chance of getting a residence permit. Nawijn himself is sympathetic towards the plan, but the cabinet does not want him to cooperate with it.

The Lower House held an emergency debate yesterday on the problems surrounding Nawijn's asylum plan. The leftwing parties accused him of not carrying out his promise of last week to give certain groups of asylum-seekers a residence permit. The conservatives (VVD) and Christian democrats (CDA) in turn stated that the minister with his Pim Fortuyn List (LPF) party has reneged on the cabinet accord.

The minister failed to win the backing of the cabinet last Friday for his proposal to admit large numbers of asylum-seekers. Nawijn said yesterday that he had wanted to review 2,300 people who through no fault of their own had remained stuck in the asylum procedure, and admit those whose situation is distressing. But the cabinet only gave him the go-ahead to use his authority in very exceptional cases, according to the minister.

Yesterday evening, it looked as though the narrow parliamentary majority would adopt a motion forcing Nawijn to allow certain groups of asylum-seekers in after all, provided they were of blameless conduct and spoke reasonable Dutch. The question is, however, whether the cabinet will take the motion into consideration or just ignore it.