The distribution law for emergency shelter for asylum seekers and measures against nuisance in Ter Apel and the surrounding area must continue as usual. Because real restrictions on migration by a new cabinet will take a very long time.
The formation of a new cabinet threatens to take many months. Ter Apel and the surrounding area cannot wait that long for solutions to the nuisance and the shortage of emergency shelter.
The election win of Wilders’ PVV, and other parties that promise to limit migration, does not mean that the number of asylum seekers in Ter Apel will simply decrease. There are no quick solutions available for this. None of the parties currently involved in the formation have a detailed plan ready for an actual reduction in the number of refugees.
It will therefore remain problematic for Ter Apel and the surrounding area for some time. A special shelter has been opened for safe havens, to prevent them from causing thefts and other misery in the area. But it took many months before that strict shelter, the PBL, was actually opened. In practice, it appears to be difficult to get the group of nuisance perpetrators into that PBL and it is still unclear whether this will reduce nuisance.
At the same time, there is again a shortage of emergency shelter and overnight accommodations at the registration center in Ter Apel. People sleep in the waiting area and a recreation room. That is why COA continues to look for additional emergency shelters. But that remains complicated as long as the distribution law has not been passed.
There was some commotion in the municipality of The Hague this weekend about the plan for emergency shelter for 100 to 120 asylum seekers in a hotel in Kijkduin. The local VVD and Richard de Mos’ party are on their hind legs. Seen from the North, that is actually scandalous. For most municipalities in Groningen and Drenthe, a number of 120 asylum seekers is quite small. The Northern Netherlands has been receiving many more refugees for some time now. So it’s high time that other parts of the country also do something more.
But yes, the distribution law has not yet been passed by the Senate. Prominent VVD Johan Remkes announced on WNL on Sunday that, as far as he is concerned, the dispersal law should simply be dealt with by the Senate. Even though there is probably no longer a majority in the newly elected House of Representatives, the previous House did agree to it by a majority. Remkes is right about that.