Comply with the Spreading Act, or a larger asylum seekers’ center? In Zaltbommel, the municipality will shift that choice for itself

Does Zaltbommel soon receive 168 asylum seekers, as agreed in the Spreading Act? Or is there a larger asylum seekers’ center for three hundred people, which means that the COA provides a general practitioner post and daily guidance, and therefore the municipality does not have to provide for it?

The issue raised the minds in the Gelderse municipality in recent weeks. And so on Thursday evening, if the decision has to fall during a inserted meeting, not just the public gallery in the Zaltbommel town hall full of people. Outside, thirty protesters protest against the arrival of an AZC. Police officers keep an eye on the group, but it remains calm.

The shutters and curtains are closed as a precaution in the council chamber. With the sound of a roaring siren of the activists in the background, acting mayor and portfolio holder reception Marnix Bakermans defends the lecture proposal: a reception location for three hundred asylum seekers. That means not only organizational unburdening by the COA, but according to him also guarantees access to facilities such as the home and dentist for the éent residents. Moreover, an exchange with other municipalities is possible: with a larger AZC, Zaltbommel has to accommodate fewer status holders, and there are therefore more social rental homes to be distributed. With a smaller daycare, the government still pays, but the municipality has to arrange much more itself.

The discussion about the size of the reception location plays in more municipalities. They are told that for the COA only the operation of a larger asylum seekers center can be financially, due to the economies of scale. For example, this spring, the college in Aalten presented a proposal for an AZC with three hundred places, while according to the Spreading Act, the municipality has to take care of two hundred people. Residents in this Achterhoek municipality protested, on which the council last week hey. She now first wants to set ‘frameworks’ before the municipal administration comes with a new reception proposal. In Best in Brabant, the council fell back from a plan for A location for 192 asylum seekers to the number (88) from the Spreading Act.

Support

In Zaltbommel it soon appears that a majority of the council will vote against the proposal on Thursday evening. Not because they are in principle against the reception of asylum seekers, all parties endorse the legal task of 168 asylum seekers. No, the support for the plan is missed.

The voting behavior cannot be seen separately from the tumultuous council meeting two weeks ago, when a decision would actually fall. Merel Duijzer from Coalitiepart Zaltbommel change with Vision (ZVV), together with SGP with five seats the largest in the council, then claimed that “some party leaders” already knew which location the municipality has in mind, while the college did not yet establish a location. Two of her party members stepped in the aftermath from ZVV. A proposal from the party to postpone the decision on the number of asylum seekers to postpone was supported by coalition partners SGP and VVD.

The ‘large’ asylum seekers’ center for three hundred men should come to a building of Schouten & Nelissen Training Center, near the A2. Director Jan-Hein Schouten was forced to inform his staff after the political discussion, he told it at the end of May Brabants Dagblad “It is not nearly certain, but I had to. Politics has hijacked this and I think that is bad.”

Geert Bok of the SGP describes the political state of affairs on Thursday as sometimes “ugly outside the lines”, ZVV’er Duijzer believes that there is no “careful and transparent process”. And so the parties do not support the proposal. The VVD wants to stick to the task of 168 asylum seekers, Isabel Plessius explains. “Not because we are indifferent, but because we care about support. This is a number based on justice.” She wants the municipality to use more small -scale care, which ensures more coherence and, moreover, promote the integration of asylum seekers.

We are doing the same here in Zaltbommel as the former cabinet in The Hague: no bag

But portfolio holder reception Bakermans calls that a “wish image” and calls for realism. “Also make sure it is manageable and feasible. We also prefer to let our children go to school in classes of twenty students. Yet we sometimes have classes of thirty children. We know what is optimal, want it, but you have to live towards reality.” More financial room for the COA, so that municipalities can also be relieved at smaller locations, he would applaud: “As far as I’m concerned, the next asylum minister is less stubborn.”

Delay

Just before the council turns to vote, Hein de Kort (CDA) still makes an emotional call. The deadline from the Spreading Act to have realized reception spots on July 1 is not achieved anyway, and he wants to know what the consequences are. “We are doing the same thing here in Zaltbommel if the former cabinet in The Hague has been doing. No bag at all,” he blames his fellow council members. If SGP’er Bok denies to argue for postponement, De Kort interrumps him: “No party argues for postponement, but the behavior does lead to a delay.”

According to Bakermans, it is sufficient for the empire if the college indicates on 1 July what it has done so far to achieve an asylum seekers’ center, and the missing of the deadline will not immediately have consequences. He therefore says he has decided not to “fight” for his own proposal, but “to listen and see how to proceed.” The council first wants a good participation process for residents, before the college submits a new proposal about the form that the AZC will take. A decision about the number of asylum seekers in Zaltbommel will take months to come.

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