There is a structural shortage of reception places for asylum seekers in the Netherlands, as a result of which thousands of asylum seekers have been staying in (crisis) emergency reception locations for months, according to the Council for Refugees. “The conditions there are below the humanitarian threshold and are harmful. In the meantime, the question is every day whether there are enough shelters where refugees can spend the night.”
Frank Candel, chairman of the Dutch Council for Refugees, also says that the reception is not temporarily below par, but that it has become structural. “We are not going to accept this as the new normal.”
According to the Council for Refugees, a court ruling can help to break the administrative impasse. “There is no shortage of solutions for the shortage of shelter places. But due to an impasse between the central government and municipalities, decisiveness is lacking. The current reception crisis is therefore primarily an administrative crisis.”
Candel further reports that important warnings and advice have been ignored for years, and that the reception crisis is therefore legally culpable. “People fleeing war or persecution must be properly cared for. And the employees who work hard to make the most of it should be empowered to do so.”