Headache or stomach ache? Eric van der Burg feels pain “always”. The asylum issue has been a major concern since the appointment of the VVD State Secretary for Asylum at the beginning of last year, which has not been eased. He has been trying to arrange more asylum reception places for almost a year, after hundreds of asylum seekers had to sleep on the grass at the overcrowded application center in Ter Apel last summer. This scenario, which Van der Burg has promised to prevent, threatens to occur again in the coming months. Van der Burg’s search for reception places can safely be called a begging round, because most municipalities are unable or unwilling to offer more permanent asylum reception places.
On Friday, the cabinet published figures on the expected influx of asylum seekers: 70,000 people are expected to apply for asylum this year. As a result, the Central Agency for the Reception of Asylum Seekers (COA) must arrange more than 77,000 beds before the end of this year, two thousand more than it had assumed in recent months.
Status holders
In addition, from the second half of this year, municipalities must arrange housing for more than 27,000 status holders, refugees with a residence permit. That is the highest number since 2015. Due to the housing shortage, 13,500 status holders are currently waiting for a home in asylum seekers’ centers, which means they occupy scarce beds intended for people who are still waiting for an answer from the IND.
The fact that Van der Burg is now mainly begging is because there is not always support in municipalities for the arrival of a permanent asylum reception location. A solution to this is the distribution law, which allows the government to force municipalities to accommodate people if necessary. That law was sent to the House of Representatives last month, after the State Secretary had not made any changes to the text of the law against the urgent advice of the Council of State. The Council, like municipalities and the judiciary, believes that the law is “unnecessarily complex”. Municipalities find the law impracticable in its current form and hope that members of parliament will make substantial adjustments. The law will not take effect before January 1.
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Municipalities write on Friday, in response to the asylum figures, that they have “great concerns” about the feasibility of the task on their plate. In addition to housing status holders, they must arrange “at least 170,000 reception places” for normal asylum seekers and Ukrainian displaced persons. Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Netherlands has taken in more than 90,000 Ukrainians and the State Secretary expects another 47,500 Ukrainians to come to the Netherlands this year. And if the municipalities were to succeed in arranging all these beds, money and manpower would also have to be made available for education, integration and health care for the extra asylum seekers. But the guarantee for full financial compensation was not forthcoming on Friday.
Only one ‘success’
A hopeless file? Van der Burg did not want to go that far on Friday. Yet he could only name one ‘success’ that dates from after he took office: the travel restriction for family members of status holders. As far as the cabinet is concerned, they were only allowed to come to the Netherlands once their family member has moved into a home in the Netherlands. Labeling the family reunification measure as a success is remarkable: the highest administrative court brushed the measure off the table in February. The fact that thousands of family members were temporarily not allowed to come to the Netherlands did not ultimately alleviate the reception crisis.
Isn’t Van der Burg mad about the asylum issue? “No, but when I look at what I have to do, I think: oops, that’s a bit much,” he said with a hoarse voice on Friday.