The cabinet will reward municipalities that make reception places for asylum seekers available on their own initiative with a ‘financial incentive’. That’s in the dispersal law on asylum receptionwhich is currently before consultation and which the VVD parliamentary party sided with on Tuesday after the intervention of Prime Minister Mark Rutte (VVD).
If the bill is implemented, municipalities will receive 2,500 euros per reception place from next year, if they make a reception location of at least one hundred places available for a period of at least five years. If municipalities do not offer enough shelter places on their own initiative, provinces and municipalities will divide the shelter places through their statutory duties. The provinces must report on this to State Secretary Eric Van der Burg (Asylum and Migration, VVD), who will then make a decision before 1 September next year.
The aim of the bill is “to distribute asylum seekers more fairly across the country than hitherto”, State Secretary Van der Burg told the media at the Ministry of Justice and Security on Tuesday evening. With the plans, Van der Burg wants to encourage municipalities to invest in ‘sustainable reception locations’. Next year, a total of about 55,000 reception places will be needed.