When Eric van der Burg became State Secretary for Justice on January 10 this year, with the Asylum and Migration portfolio, it soon became clear that a somewhat different wind was blowing than under his predecessor and party colleague, the VVD politician Ankie Broekers-Knol. As early as the spring, he announced that he needed the support of all municipalities in the Netherlands when receiving asylum seekers, and this was the only way to resolve the untenable situation in Ter Apel. And in July he said that ‘any barrier that is still being erected must be broken’.
About the author:
Leo Lucassen is director of the International Institute of Social History and professor at the University of Leiden
For decades, municipalities that want to accept few or no asylum seekers have formed such a barrier and although Van der Burg has to walk on eggshells in his party, he also states that a dispersal law is necessary if voluntary action does not yield enough. And coincidentally, his own Advisory Committee on Immigration Affairs (ACVZ), together with the Council for Public Administration, issued an extensive advice on 14 June recommending that the reception of promising asylum seekers (about three quarters of the total) should be a municipal task. just like the housing of status holders. Because only ‘if we do not deal with the reception as a crisis, but as a social approach’ (ACVZ) will there be peace on this front and the degrading conditions in Ter Apel, which started in 2021 and continue to the present day.
coercive law
In the meantime, this very sensible advice, which the Association of Netherlands Municipalities has also endorsed, has become a ‘compulsory law’, which the House of Representatives fraction of the VVD is firmly against. Apparently they are fine with hundreds of municipalities refusing to even allow emergency shelters. And that poorer municipalities receive three times as many asylum seekers than richer ones.
In the past ten years, for example, the hundred poorest municipalities in the Netherlands, such as Pekela, Vlagtwedde and Dongeradeel, are responsible for almost half, while the hundred richest municipalities only account for about 15 percent of the average number of beds in asylum seekers’ centres. . It is irrelevant that the more welcoming attitude of poorer municipalities also stems from other motives (such as employment). The fact is that solidarity among richer municipalities is hard to find in the current system. And let the supporters of the VVD now concentrate precisely in those cities and villages.
It should therefore come as no surprise that Prime Minister Mark Rutte, who said in May that he was ‘deeply ashamed’ of the situation in Ter Apel, cried crocodile tears. This is apparent not only from the lack of actual action, but also from his explanation, namely that the housing crisis (also largely made by the VVD) was an important cause. With that he wiped his hands clean and he had an excuse not to do anything structural about the problems.
Status holders
Meanwhile, MPs of the VVD, such as Thierry Aartsen, seize every opportunity to vote against asylum seekers. That turned out this week after the fuss about a message in The Financial Times, eagerly taken over by other media, that ‘dozens of status holders’ would have resigned immediately after they had been allocated a home. After inquiries with the municipality, little of this message was left.
Not only did it concern only six status holders (out of 650), but also poorly paid and irregular work at a fast food chain, which does not cover the fixed costs. In addition, they are now expected to integrate, which takes a lot of time, and the lack of childcare played a role. In short, an elephant was made from a mosquito.
But that did not prevent Thierry Aartsen from putting a video on Twitter, after the true circumstances had become clear, with the message ‘that it is not possible for beneficiaries to quit their job to receive benefits on 11 October.’ The same parliamentarian who, together with his group members (and the CDA), voted against the proposal to give asylum seekers direct access to the labor market, just like Ukrainians.
And in the meantime, the ACVZ’s advice is framed as a ‘compulsory law’ instead of a solidarity law, which means that not only the reception, but above all the integration in the longer term is put into effect.
So we can only conclude that the VVD faction – supported for the time being by Rutte and Justice Minister Dilan Yesilgöz – consciously wants to keep the mess in the asylum reception. By refusing to introduce legislation based on solidarity, it not only deliberately contributes to the violation of national and international law, as the judge determined last weekbut she also leaves her own secretary of state out in the cold.