The Netherlands Council for Refugees will initiate summary proceedings within three weeks against the government and the Central Agency for the Reception of Asylum Seekers (COA). In doing so, the organization says it wants to force a solution to the reception crisis.
At the beginning of July, the Council for Refugees announced that it would go to court if asylum seekers were not received in accordance with the minimum legal requirements on 1 August. According to the organization, the situation has since fallen further below the humanitarian threshold.
In recent weeks, hundreds of asylum seekers have slept in the grass outside the application center in Ter Apel, the Council for Refugees indicates. “Others have been staying in emergency shelter locations such as tents and sports halls with camp beds for several months. Thousands have been waiting for almost a year for improvements in emergency shelter locations such as event halls and tent camps. In many places, the most basic conditions are lacking in the shelter, such as decent food, a bed. , adequate clean sanitation, privacy and weather protection.”
For months, the central government and municipalities have been at an impasse about who is responsible, said the Council for Refugees. With a court ruling, the representative of asylum seekers and refugees says that they want to break this impasse. “After the Security Council on July 18, municipalities reiterated that the crisis emergency reception will end on October 1. They rightly point out that this reception crisis is not the result of a refugee crisis, but of political choices that have left the asylum system in a permanent state of crisis for years. ”
According to the organization, one of the causes of this impasse is a lack of perseverance on the part of the central government. “Free requests to municipalities to propose reception locations have insufficient effect. A legislative amendment that enables the central government to designate reception locations is in the making, but the time to wait for this is over.”
The Council for Refugees is currently finalizing a summons that will be sent within three weeks.