Municipalities must create living space for 20,000 status holders this autumn. In order to realize this, the cabinet will allocate hundreds of millions of euros in the coming years for, among other things, emergency shelter, housing and tackling nuisance causes. These are the cabinet, the Association of Dutch Municipalities (VNG), the Security Council and the provinces on Friday agreed.
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The agreements must limit the influx of asylum seekers and thus relieve overcrowded asylum seekers’ centres. For the time being, only status holders who have a home are eligible for family reunification. The cabinet is also temporarily stopping the so-called Turkey deal, which distributes asylum seekers across the EU. As a result of this decision, 1,250 fewer newcomers will come to the Netherlands until the end of next year.
In addition, the procedures for underprivileged asylum seekers will be accelerated and asylum seekers from safe countries and those who cause nuisance will go to a separate location. And to combat human trafficking more effectively, the border control of the Marechaussee will be tightened.
The fact that many asylum seekers’ centers are faced with a lack of space is partly due to slow decision-making at the Immigration and Naturalization Service (IND), which is struggling with backlogs. As a result, too few asylum seekers move on to another location. The IND can be forced to take a decision more quickly by means of periodic penalty payments. In order to limit the number of penalty payments to be made, the decision period for an asylum application has been extended from six to fifteen months.
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‘Inhumane’ conditions in Ter Apel
The reason for the agreement is, among other things, the dire circumstances in the application center Ter Apel, where hundreds of refugees have been forced to camp outside for about two weeks due to a lack of sleeping places. Aid organization Doctors Without Borders, which has not previously intervened in the Netherlands, will provide medical assistance on the ground in the coming weeks. This includes treating infections, skin diseases and injuries of asylum seekers who, according to MSF director Judith Sargentini, are in “inhumane” conditions.
Last Thursday, the aid organization urgently sent two asylum seekers to the hospital. One had an acute heart attack, the other suffered from diabetes and had been without insulin for a month. In the night from Tuesday to Wednesday, a three-month-old baby died in the sports hall of Ter Apel. The cause of death is still unknown and is under investigation.
A solution must be found “immediately” for the “unsustainable situation” at Ter Apel, State Secretary Eric van der Burg (Asylum Affairs, VVD) said on Friday. The Ministry of Defense has therefore made a large-scale new reception location available, which must be functional “from next week”. Van der Burg did not say where that place is. Until then, asylum seekers for whom there is no place in Ter Apel must be received elsewhere “as soon as possible”. It is unclear whether this will work. In the meantime, it has been agreed with the mayor of Groningen Koen Schuiling (VVD) that hygiene at the application center must be improved.
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Administrative crisis
In recent weeks, the asylum crisis grew into an administrative crisis, in which municipalities and the cabinet were initially diametrically opposed. Because insufficient asylum places became available on a voluntary basis, the cabinet decided last week to take charge itself. Van der Burg announced that the government is buying a hotel in the municipality of Tubbergen to make room for three hundred asylum seekers, which is the first time that a municipality is overtaken in decision-making. The coercive measure led to strong criticism from local residents and the municipality of Tubbergen.
Meanwhile, there is also resistance from the hotel itself. On Friday, the owner announced that he wanted to waive the sale, for 1 million 480 thousand euros. Reason: she would not have agreed if she knew that 150 to 300 asylum seekers would come into the building. The Central Agency for the Reception of Asylum Seekers (COA), which has gone to court to enforce the purchase, disputes this and claims to have been transparent about the zoning plan. The hearing is in Almelo on Monday at 1 p.m.
Also read: Conflict in VVD about housing status holders
Local VVD factions are critical
Asylum policy also kept people busy within the coalition party VVD. Local VVD departments previously criticized the cabinet in fire letters that “a boundary in principle” has been crossed by designating a location for the reception of asylum seekers “against the will of democratically elected administration”.
VVD party chairman Sebastiaan Vliegen from the Limburg municipality of Voerendaal, initiator of the first ‘fire letter’ to the VVD summit about asylum reception, is also “not really reassured” on Friday. “We want structural solutions to prevent that we are not much further ahead in a year than we are now. I am afraid that the Netherlands still remains too attractive compared to other European countries.” Flying calls the plans “quickly conceived”. “The big problem is the large numbers in relation to the waiting lists of Dutch people, and the increasing energy bill.”
Teun Heldens, party leader of VVD Peel en Maas, calls the new plan “symptom control”. “The real influx is not addressed enough. It’s way too skinny. Gentle surgeons make stinking living.”
With the cooperation of Petra de Koning.