State Secretary for Asylum Eric van der Burg sees that the way in which the Netherlands reacts to the refugee flow from Ukraine is different than when many people fled from Afghanistan, Syria or Iraq. Nevertheless, he is above all happy with the support he is now experiencing from the Netherlands in this crisis, he said in the TV program Op1.
Van der Burg does not believe that there is no difference at all between the attitude in society towards people from non-Western or predominantly Muslim countries and the Ukrainians. “We can’t say that. Of course we see that it is really different in some places and in some people.” There is as yet no resistance as there was to the arrival of Syrians who fled in 2015. The Secretary of State did not explain the underlying reasons for this. “But let’s count our blessings.”
The state secretary says that “the people really feel they are helping the neighbors” when it comes to the Ukrainians. “We often say in the Netherlands that people should be taken care of in the region. At the moment Western Europe, the Netherlands is the region.” He also praised the efforts of countries such as Poland and Hungary in Op1. They now provide a lot of support, while they usually oppose the reception of people who are fleeing from war zones.
The VVD member does not dare to predict how many asylum seekers will eventually come to the Netherlands from Ukraine. “It can be small numbers, but we have to take into account large numbers.”
Earlier in the day, he discussed this with the mayors from the 25 security regions. It has been agreed that each region will realize a thousand reception places in the short term, and another thousand in the slightly longer term. Currently, 250 to 300 Ukrainian refugees have formally registered in the Netherlands. In reality, the number may be higher because there is generally no obligation for this group to register.
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