The Netherlands may ‘simply’ send an asylum seeker who has first knocked in Belgium back to our southern neighbors. This judgment by the Council of State is a victory for outgoing State Secretary Eric van der Burg, because that route was frozen for a while due to the difficult reception situation in Belgium.
An Angolan asylum seeker who was sent away in Ter Apel because he had previously applied for asylum in Belgium, started a lawsuit against the State Secretary. The man stated that the situation in Belgium is ‘contrary to human rights’ and that the Dublin procedure (asylum seekers can be sent back to the EU country where they first applied for asylum) was not valid.
Our southern neighbors have been stating since last summer that they no longer guarantee ‘bed, bath and bread’ for male asylum seekers. The result: in Brussels, where Belgium’s ‘Ter Apel’ is located, many men sleep outside in tents, because due to a lack of space, priority is given to women and children. Office buildings are also regularly squatted by migrants and homeless people.
Homeless shelter
“In practice, this means that single men only sporadically get a place in regular shelter,” the Council of State acknowledged on Wednesday. Yet that is not enough reason to say that the Netherlands can no longer return the Angolan man to Belgium, is the verdict. “The men on the waiting list can still use emergency and homeless shelters and medical and legal facilities.”
“The State Secretary may therefore still transfer foreigners to Belgium on the basis of the European Dublin Regulation,” said the highest administrative court.
Victory for Secretary of State
The judgment is a victory for Van der Burg and could help the stalled Dutch asylum system. Since last year, transfers of asylum seekers from the Netherlands to Belgium have largely come to a standstill, much to Van der Burg’s open irritation. He previously told De Telegraaf: “Yes, hello, if we can’t even send asylum seekers to Belgium, what are we doing?”
Last year, the Netherlands sent more than 400 requests to Belgium to take back ‘Dublin asylum seekers’. This year, only two asylum seekers were successfully returned, according to figures from the Belgian Public Service Home Affairs. This group (and asylum seekers who knock on the door of Ter Apel in the future) can now be sent back.