The Spreading Act will officially enter into force on Tuesday 1 July: asylum seekers must now be distributed more fairly across the Netherlands. At least, on paper. Because although the law has been in force since February 2023, only one third of the municipalities meet their duties on the day of introduction. The central ambition – structural, fair distribution of asylum reception – is therefore far out of reach.
That is a painful observation. The reception crisis is not a surprise, but a delayed disaster that has been visible in the Netherlands for years. Despite the relatively stable asylum inflow since 2022, poor care has become a standing policy. Not because of force majeure, but because of national political choices.
Asylum reception is a self -created problem. The Spreading Act can be a solution for this: no endless supplications of the Central Agency for the Reception of Asylum Seekers (COA) to municipalities, but a legal basis for fair distribution. This allows the loads and the resistance to be spread. And the Netherlands can finally pay with the structural shortage of reception capacity and the annual cycle of crisis, emergency shelter and political panic.
Because that’s how the problem is being tackled: always scaling up ad hoc and reducing it. While unstable care, according to the COA itself, is “the mother of all bottlenecks.” The annual state of the implementation shows Moreover, that structural financing would considerably reduce costs. Now the reception is unnecessarily expensive, vulnerable and inefficient.
But even with such a heavy instrument as legislation, still introduced under Rutte IV, administrative decisiveness is lacking. The figures are significant: of the intended thirty thousand extra reception places, only ten thousand were realized on 1 July, analyzed, analyzed NRC. Half of that concerns emergency shelter – more expensive and more unstable than regular care.
There are municipalities that deliver. For example, Woerden started an agreement with the COA before introduction with plans, and this year it will open a temporary daycare for 350 people. However, the municipality does not formally count, because the final location is only ready in 2027. Elsewhere, municipalities with good intentions get stuck on slow permits, resistance of local residents and a crowded power grid.
It is the tragedy of a law that was never worn politically. From the start the sword of Damocles hung above it: former PVV minister Faber has already been working on abolition, and now also the Ministry of Responsible Missionary Minister Mona Keijzer (BBB) is working on a proposal to withdraw the law. For example, The Hague undermines the only serious attempt at structural care and the use of municipalities that do want.
This not only has consequences for asylum seekers, who, due to the often temporary nature, have to move – and often in a hurry -. Children have to change schools, accumulated social contacts fall away, and medical care must be requested again and again. The support for reception in the Netherlands also suffers: the persistent image of a permanent crisis undermines confidence in good policy.
Everyone acknowledges that it is complicated. But complicated is not the same as insoluble. The reception crisis is not a natural phenomenon, but an administrative problem – and therefore administratively soluble. The law is there. Municipalities show deployment. The COA is active. What remains is political will.
The Spreading Act is the best solution so far. But then drivers must perform her.