After a year and a half of war, the reception of the 95,000 Ukrainian refugees in the Netherlands is starting to become ‘tightening’, for the Ukrainians themselves and for the receiving municipalities. There is a lack of privacy, facilities and perspective.
This is what the Migration Advisory Council writes in the report ‘The price of temporality’ that will be published today. The council is one of the most important advisory bodies of the cabinet.
Of the 95,000 Ukrainian refugees registered in the Netherlands, 76,000 are staying in (large) emergency reception locations throughout the Netherlands. The other 20,000 have their own living space or stay with private individuals. There is a great lack of privacy in the emergency reception locations (often converted, vacant office buildings). That is starting to become a problem after seventeen months, the Council concludes. Many Ukrainians also have difficulty accessing Dutch healthcare because financing is too complicated for them.
At the end of last year, almost half of the Ukrainian refugees had found work in the Netherlands, but this often involved work as an on-call worker or via employment agencies. ‘Low-paid sectors in which employers invest little in the development and training of people’, according to the Advisory Council. ‘We hear more and more about situations of labor exploitation. People who find a job through an intermediary, work under poor conditions and often never see their money. I am very concerned about that,’ says a Rotterdam supervisor in the report.
Insecurity
The fact that the reception will become tight is mainly due to the uncertainty in which the Ukrainians still find themselves. Displaced Ukrainians in the European Union do not have to apply for asylum, they are automatically granted protected status. This status offers advantages (Ukrainians are allowed to work immediately, asylum seekers are not), but it also has a major disadvantage: what happens when that status expires – no later than March 4, 2025 – and the war is not over yet?
‘Initially, this temporary protection seemed to be the best solution for everyone. The idea was that Ukrainians would be able to get on with their lives in this way and, as soon as possible, would be able to return to their country. Now that the war continues, that temporariness is starting to become a problem’, the Advisory Council writes. ‘Ukrainian displaced people need perspective. It is necessary to offer them not temporariness, but clarity. If displaced persons know where they stand after 4 March 2025, they can focus on that. Then they can invest in work and care in their new place of residence and neighbourhood, or make good use of their time with a view to returning to Ukraine.’
One of the ideas proposed by the council is ‘a reconstruction permit’. Ukrainian refugees can then stay in an EU country for a maximum of ten years. During that period, their country should be safe and rebuilt. ‘You can think of a situation in which part of the family helps rebuild Ukraine, but can still return to the country where the rest of the family still resides.’
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