With the bill, Van der Burg wants to distribute asylum seekers better across the municipalities. In the new system, the municipalities provide reception places based on the number of inhabitants. If municipalities receive more refugees than they should, they receive a financial bonus. Municipalities that continue to refuse to receive asylum seekers may eventually be forced to do so by the State Secretary.
The parties involved were pleased that the bill had finally been drafted after months of negotiations. The COA also indicates that the law is important and offers perspective. Yet they think that the law will not provide short-term relief in the overcrowded asylum chain. “It is realistic that the law will not lead to relief of the reception situation until 2024,” they say to Fidelity.
It can even lead to fewer reception places, for example if a municipality closes existing reception places in anticipation of what other municipalities will do. Municipalities have months to allocate reception places.
There is also no financial bonus for arranging shelters for unaccompanied minor refugees. There is already a considerable shortage of reception places for this group, and the COA fears that municipalities are not being stimulated enough to arrange this. Nidos also agrees with these criticisms in the newspaper, and would prefer to see the bonus system disappear completely.
Municipalities were also concerned about feasibility
The COA repeats the call for a flexible reception system. According to the organization, that is the way to get out of the crisis and to stay. With this system, reception locations are no longer sold when the number of asylum seekers decreases, but are temporarily used for something else. In this way, new reception locations can be opened quickly if the number of asylum applications increases.
The Association of Netherlands Municipalities (VNG) previously expressed doubts about the proposal. Rutger Groot Wassink of the VNG told NU.nl to worry about feasibility. “Because is this law really going to work?”, he wondered.
The law will soon be presented to the House of Representatives.
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