The Council for Refugees will take the government and COA to court within three weeks because of the reception crisis. The situation has recently “went even further below the humanitarian line”. “A very ugly reason to go to court, but we see that there is no other way.”
According to the Council for Refugees, asylum seekers who come to the Netherlands have not been able to count on “the most basic reception conditions” for months. A spokesperson mentions, among other things, decent food and clean showers and toilets. “And if there is a bed at all, they often have no privacy at all for months.”
The organization already announced at the beginning of July that it wanted to go to court if the reception did not meet “the legal minimum standards” before August 1.
The asylum seekers’ centers (AZCs) have been overcrowded for months. In Ter Apel, where asylum seekers first have to report, people regularly sleep outside the building. Asylum seekers have also been living in crisis emergency reception locations for a long time, even though they were only used for a short period of time.
‘Government itself is responsible for the reception crisis’
The problem is not that there are currently too many asylum seekers coming to the Netherlands. The crisis appears to have been mainly caused by the government itself. This is what the Advisory Council on Migration (ACVZ) and the Council for Public Administration (ROB) have already concluded.
The Council for Refugees also points to the central government. The organization sees that municipalities and the Central Agency for the Reception of Asylum Seekers (COA) are working hard on solutions, but it is stuck at the political level. “The central government and the municipalities do not agree on who is responsible for the reception. We want to break that impasse by taking a step to the court.”
In addition, the Council for Refugees wants to look at the circumstances in which people are received. That is not always the priority now.
Refugee Council wants emergency law
According to the Council for Refugees, an emergency law is one of the solutions to the reception crisis. At the moment, municipalities still voluntarily receive asylum seekers. With such an emergency law, the government should be able to designate places in municipalities where refugees must be received.
The government is already working to make this possible with a legislative amendment. But that could take until next year. That is too long, says the Council for Refugees. “We have seen for so long that it is stuck, while now people are sleeping on the grass.”
The Council for Refugees will send out a summons to appear in court within three weeks. That step is taken with “pain in the heart”, says the spokesperson. “Good reception should be a matter of course. It has been that way for years.”