The farmers gathered in the yard of a nearby farmer earlier today, then drove their tractors to the application center. They do not intend to enter the site, but are parked on the verge of a road that runs past the application center. The farmers arrived there around three o’clock and were gone an hour later.
It has been very busy in the application center for weeks, partly because the flow of status holders to homes is stagnating. In the night from Wednesday to Thursday, a hundred asylum seekers had to sleep outside because there was no room for them inside, a new record. In addition, 150 people had to sleep on chairs in the waiting area and about 50 in a sports hall. The cabinet wants to open more application centers in order to spread the asylum seekers better, but has not yet found a municipality that is willing to cooperate.
The farmers say they are aware of the dire situation in Ter Apel. “We do not want to actually register,” says a spokesperson. ‘We see it as a playful action, to make a statement.
A spokeswoman for the Central Agency for the Reception of Asylum Seekers (COA) said that people at the application center were ‘quite overwhelmed’ when the tractors arrived. “The atmosphere is now calm again,” said the spokeswoman. According to the COA, the demonstration has had no influence on the registration process for people waiting outside.
About seventy of the hundred tractors come from Germany, including from the area of Bremen. According to the spokesman, the German farmers want to ‘support their Dutch colleagues in our fight against the government’. At least one of the Germans has applied for asylum symbolically.