Jaap Velema, mayor of the Groningen municipality of Westerwolde, which also includes the village of Ter Apel, wins this year’s Machiavelli Prize for public communication. The foundation behind the award on Monday made this clear announced. Velema has been speaking out for years about the overcrowded registration center for asylum seekers in Ter Apel.
The mayor was in the public gallery in the House of Representatives last month when VVD leader Dilan Yesilgöz tried to postpone the ‘dispersal law’ for the distribution of asylum seekers. “It makes me sad, desperate, furious, every emotion you can imagine,” he said Heart of the Netherlands.
This month, the municipality of Westerwolde filed summary proceedings against the Central Agency for the Reception of Asylum Seekers, to demand that that government body adheres to the agreement for two thousand asylum seekers in Ter Apel. “My emotion stems from powerlessness,” Velema said in court. “Although I don’t talk about it, I feel responsible.”
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‘Tireless’
“Velema continues to work tirelessly for the interests of everyone in his municipality. Also for the people who literally had to sleep outside due to the stagnant policy in The Hague,” the jury wrote. “Out of his responsibility, he is entwined with a problem that he cannot solve himself.” Nevertheless, according to the jury, Velema succeeds in keeping the mood in the municipality “reasonably under control”.
Velema will receive his prize in mid-February, which the jury also sees as “a recognition for the entire community in Ter Apel”. Last year, Johan Remkes was the winner for his mediation between farmers and the government in the nitrogen crisis. Previous winners were weatherman Gerrit Hiemstra, the then Princess Máxima and the women’s rights initiative She Decides by Lilianne Ploumen.
The directors of the Machiavelli Foundation are also the jury for the annual prize. It management consists of members of parliament from GroenLinks-Pvda, VVD and CDA, the secretary general of the Ministry of Education and political editors of the NOS, de Volkskrant and RTL News.
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