Ter Apel cannot do it alone: ​​when will the promised help come?

Last summer, Prime Minister Mark Rutte swore that the cabinet would do everything to prevent a repeat of the drama at the overcrowded application center Ter Apel. Hundreds of asylum seekers slept in the open air, sometimes in the pouring rain. Doctors without Borders was forced to provide emergency aid – for the first time in the history of the organization in the Netherlands. Before January 1, the national government, municipalities and provinces promised structural solutions, with good and humane reception.

This Wednesday, the cabinet will probably come up with new forecasts about the arrival of asylum seekers in the Netherlands, but the crisis is by no means resolved. With better weather in the spring, more asylum seekers venture the long journey from home, and Ter Apel is almost full again. About 1,900 asylum seekers are now staying there, while there is room for 2,000 people, the Central Agency for the Reception of Asylum Seekers (COA) recently announced.

For the time being, no people have to sleep outside, thanks to the municipality of Breda that has opened a temporary reception location, according to the COA. But the question is: what has the cabinet achieved since last summer to prevent the degrading scenes at Ter Apel in the near future?

Spread law

Sometimes Secretary of State Eric van der Burg (Justice and Security, VVD) succeeds in arranging reception places for a few dozen asylum seekers. He then puts the benevolent municipality in the spotlight on social media. That cannot hide the fact that Van der Burg’s search for beds has resulted in a continuous round of begging.

The ‘distribution law’, with which the central government can force provinces and municipalities to provide asylum reception if necessary, was supposed to bring the solution as of 1 January this year – but that law is still not in place. The Council of State called the bill “unnecessarily complex” in February and wondered whether it was feasible. Municipalities that offer extra places receive a reward. But if the total supply is too low, provinces and municipalities must find a solution, otherwise the government can intervene.

Contrary to the advice of the Council of State, State Secretary Van der Burg has not amended the bill. The sensitive law is the result of a hard-fought deal within the coalition. A single adjustment could jeopardize coalition unity. VVD and CDA want to reduce the number of new asylum seekers, while D66 and ChristenUnie advocate solutions and proper reception of refugees.

Cruise ships

At the end of May there will be a hearing with experts on the distribution law, after which the House of Representatives will debate it. A major uncertainty is whether the bill will subsequently pass the Senate, where the coalition is sixteen seats short of a majority. Right-wing parties, including the BoerBurgerBeweging in the Senate, are against forcing provinces and municipalities.

Right-wing parties, including the BoerBurgerBeweging in the Senate, are against forcing provinces and municipalities to

As long as the distribution law is not in place, most municipalities are hesitant to create permanent reception places for asylum seekers. State Secretary Van der Burg has therefore largely been sentenced to crisis emergency shelters, such as beds in, for example, sports halls, hotels or cultural centers.

The cabinet assumed that this crisis emergency shelter would be needed until 1 October last year. But since then, Van der Burg has had to ask for an extension of this scheme several times, much to the chagrin of municipalities. The only agreement between the cabinet and the 25 Security Regions, charged with crisis emergency shelter, is that these places will be available until July 1 at the latest.

Last year, the cabinet also briefly toyed with the idea of ​​temporarily accommodating asylum seekers on cruise ships off the coast or in ports, but that controversial idea was not a success. Velsen-Noord recently decided to ban such a cruise ship after all, after a local referendum in which almost 60 percent of the voters voted against extending the asylum reception.

Another problem that the cabinet is unable to solve is the accommodation of status holders. About 16,000 status holders, refugees with a residence permit, are currently waiting for a home. Due to the national housing shortage, municipalities cannot find houses. As a result, status holders occupy the scarce beds for asylum seekers – an important cause of the reception crisis.

This Wednesday it should become clear for how many status holders municipalities must arrange housing from the summer. The deadline for this expired on April 1. The asylum prognosis and the housing of beneficiaries will be linked to the Spring Memorandum, which has yet to be presented. “If you have to arrange extra reception places, that can also cost extra money,” said Van der Burg last Friday NRC.

Violent incidents

According to all those involved, it is no longer possible that the Ter Apel application center must always receive newcomers. The national government and municipalities have therefore previously agreed that three other registration centers should be set up in the Netherlands – which has not yet succeeded despite various attempts. There has been a second reception location in Budel (North Brabant) for several years now, but it will close next year, partly after a number of violent incidents.

The COA also had the municipality of Bant (Flevoland) in mind last year, but withdrew that plan because there was too little support among residents. In Alkmaar, alderman Joël Voordewind (ChristenUnie) thought of a former tax office, but in March the mayor and aldermen fell over this issue. Almere has also been mentioned as a possible location for a new registration centre, but little is known about that yet.

And then the cabinet also had to arrange shelter for the more than 90,000 Ukrainian displaced persons who fled to the Netherlands after the Russian invasion. Thanks to a temporary protection scheme at European level, they do not need to apply for asylum. More than 70,000 Ukrainians are housed in municipal emergency shelters, some are staying with host families. State Secretary Van der Burg expects another 47,500 Ukrainians to come to the Netherlands this year.

The government has not yet asked municipalities to “prepare more shelters for Ukrainians”, according to Liesbeth Spies of the Association of Netherlands Municipalities (VNG). Spies also points out that shelter alone is not enough. Education and care must also be available. “The government forgets that I don’t have a doctor with extra money,” Sybrand Buma, mayor of Leeuwarden, complained earlier in NRC.

Fire letter

The fate of nearly 5,000 ‘third-country nationals’ from Ukraine remains uncertain. These are people who were staying in Ukraine on a temporary residence permit at the time of the Russian invasion, often students from the Middle East and African countries.

In January, municipalities sent the State Secretary an urgent letter, because a timely and clear solution for this group was not forthcoming. The government was to come up with a plan no later than 1 October last year. In response to the urgent letter, the government decided that third-country nationals may remain in the reception for Ukrainians until 1 September. Meanwhile, municipalities still do not know what will happen to these people from September.

“Am I worried? Yes, I am concerned,” Van der Burg said on Friday. He sees things going well in the coming weeks, and he does not expect Ter Apel to sleep outside. “We must do everything we can to avoid saying, like last year, that we cannot make it.”