During a visit to the asylum seekers’ center in Grave, State Secretary Eric van der Burg (Asylum and Migration, VVD) takes a look at the housing of Herakli and his family who fled from Georgia. The four of them live in a so-called Barli, one of the prefab family homes on the grounds of the asylum seekers’ center that was previously located in the adjacent General de Bons barracks.
Herakli fled from the Russians six years ago and has recently obtained residency status. Here Van der Burg comes face to face with one of the major problems in asylum reception: the non-transfer of status holders from asylum seekers’ centres. Of the more than 37 thousand, partly temporary shelters in the Netherlands, 13 thousand are occupied by recognized refugees who are waiting for a home.
The municipality of Land van Cuijk, which includes Grave since this year, has allowed Herakli to refuse a home in neighboring Mill. He would like to stay in Grave, because he is already rooted here, says Herakli in good Dutch. The municipality has promised him an alternative as soon as possible.
That is exactly what Van der Burg asked the Central Agency for the Reception of Asylum Seekers (COA) last week, especially to relieve the overcrowded application center in Ter Apel: try, together with municipalities, to accommodate status holders in the municipality where they will soon be living, for example in hotels or leisure parks. The government will pay for this, and it would make room in the asylum seekers’ centres.
hat in hand
As a former alderman of Amsterdam and a former senator, Van der Burg (56) is well aware of the unruly asylum file, but the reception problem is now even more acute than when he took office in January. The minister has been going through the country ‘hat in hand’ in recent weeks to arrange shelter places, he said in the House of Representatives. The end of the corona virus and the abolition of travel restrictions mean that the number of asylum applications (new, repeated and following travelers) is rising again quickly, to now a thousand a week. Then came the war in Ukraine.
For the Ukrainians, the existing ’emergency law’, the Population Relocation Act, has come into effect, because the large influx of this group of displaced persons (now 24 thousand) has been classified as an ‘extraordinary circumstance’. A senior Van der Burg official said during a hearing in the House on Tuesday that scenarios involving 100 to 150 thousand Ukrainians in the Netherlands are also being looked at: ‘We want to be prepared for that.’
In addition, Van der Burg informed the House, in response to a request from the mayors of the 25 security regions, that he is investigating whether coercion as an ‘extreme resort’ could also be a solution for asylum reception. He himself is a proponent of voluntary participation: he talks himself ‘the blisters on the tongue’ to convince mayors and aldermen to arrange shelter places.
‘I think that’s the best solution’, says Van der Burg after a tour of Grave, which has been receiving asylum seekers since 1997. ‘This asylum seekers’ center is 25 years old. Continuity is good for both residents and employees. As a result, COA can invest in additional facilities. I’m going for temptation.’ But he also sees that a considerable number of municipalities do not want to, mainly because of the problems caused by unaccompanied minors from ‘safe countries’. In Land van Cuijk, this led to the imminent closure of another asylum seekers’ center in Overloon. The neighborhood has had enough of the nuisance.
You are investigating the possibility of more perseverance. What are you thinking about?
‘That would, for example, be a new law that obliges municipalities to offer shelter. Because we already have provincial management tables, this could be arranged at provincial level. For example by saying: each province is responsible for three thousand reception places. The provinces can then divide these between municipalities.’
You said earlier: I think an emergency law is an embarrassment, a defeat. And yet you are examining it now.
‘Because the security regions and the king’s commissioners have asked for it. I can’t give any indication, we have nowhere in the Netherlands a space without a municipality where you can say: the State Secretary can arrange it here.’
You said in the House: there is a hole in the law. I am nationally responsible for asylum reception, but I have nothing in my hands to enforce it.
‘That’s right. An emergency law could close that gap.’
You are hesitant about it, but it would also help.
‘Yes. But for the time being, I’m mainly going to keep calling, texting and driving past.’
A major effort is required from society, while roughly two-thirds of asylum applications are rejected. Then doubt about the sincerity of motives is understandable, isn’t it?
“Yeah, but that doesn’t change the fact that everyone who comes here does so in a sincere effort to make it better. People smugglers drop people off in Ter Apel, even though that was not their specific destination. They say: we will take you to the Netherlands or Germany, because that is where you have the best chance. And then we say: you are not here for security reasons, but for economic reasons, and that is not possible.’
You have introduced a somewhat different vocabulary to the asylum debate. You don’t want to talk about ‘lucky seekers’, not about ‘flows’ and not about ‘strict but fair’.
‘When you talk about nuisances, you have to be strict. When it comes to those who have exhausted all legal remedies, you have to be strict. But for people who end up here, we have to be fair. And we must first determine that together. We must make the pressure that this puts on society as bearable as possible. Hence my appeal to take responsibility.’
You are also the VVD member of the popular statement in Amsterdam: ‘The more asylum seekers, the better.’ That sounds different from your predecessors.
‘It was also about taking responsibility. There is great support for reception in Amsterdam. And there’s plenty of money, because that can be a thing too. City council and residents were in full agreement. Moreover, a thousand extra asylum seekers are not noticeable at all in Amsterdam, because there are already 900,000 people living there.’
Does your use of words also mean that you advocate a different asylum policy?
‘New. The starting point is good: those fleeing persecution, war or violence must be able to receive shelter. In this term of office we will make the leap from five hundred invited refugees to nine hundred a year. They come through the UNHCR and it is not in dispute that they are refugees. That’s what I like to see. That is the difference with the more than 30,000 who just come here and more than half of whom are not allowed to stay. We are trying to reduce this group, preferably at a European level.
‘You shouldn’t come here on the basis of people smuggling. Of the people who arrive in Ter Apel, the vast majority have not registered anywhere in Europe, while they have been to many countries. This means that there are gaps in border control on the edges of Europe. Apparently they entered without being stopped in country X or Y with the question: who are you? We have to reduce that. European border protection must be improved.’
What is your experience in Europe so far?
‘At the moment Europe is only concerned with one thing and that is the war. Logically.’
And in Hungary Viktor Orbán has been widely re-elected…
‘Yes, that will not help to arrange something in solidarity within Europe.’
So we should not expect anything from a European ‘migration pact’ for the time being?
“In any case, it will be at a very, very, very slow pace. I can see, now in Poland for example, that these countries are sticking to their position that they do not want a redistribution of refugees across Europe. They still don’t ask. As a result, they now have 2.5 million in their own country. In that respect they are consistent.’