ASYLUM SEEKERSOn her last day as State Secretary for Asylum, Ankie Broekers-Knol made a striking confession. In answer to parliamentary questions, she states in so many words that the cabinet cannot force municipalities to receive asylum seekers.
In mid-December, the VVD member threatened with a so-called ‘designation’ that would oblige municipalities to receive asylum seekers because of an emergency situation. The demand for beds was high at that time, while the Netherlands does have obligations under European treaties to offer people emergency shelter.
At that time, Broekers-Knol referred to an ‘instruction’, with which the central government would instruct municipalities to arrange reception. This concerned the municipalities of Gorinchem, Venray and Enschede and the Rotterdam-Rijnmond region. However, Broekers-Knol wrote today: the cabinet had no legal basis for this at all. In response to questions from Pieter Omtzigt, she wrote that it was ‘no indication in a legal sense’ and that the letters in which she wrote it to municipalities ‘had no legal effect under public law’. Ergo: ‘I couldn’t force them’.
She says she used the word ‘indication’ because of the ‘acute emergency in the reception locations’. Space had to be found quickly for 2000 people to prevent them having to be accommodated ‘in tents and gymnasiums’. The municipalities themselves had made insufficient care available.
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It is curious that this designation has no legal grounds, because one of her predecessors, then State Secretary Klaas Dijkhoff, also used it. He made the same threat in 2015 when the increase from Syria was huge.
Broekers-Knol will no longer be able to answer questions about this, she was relieved as State Secretary today by VVD member Eric van der Burg. When asked, he did not want to respond to the letter from his predecessor. “I think I have read the same things as you have read, but I have read them as a citizen and not as a State Secretary with all the information that goes with it, because I have only been in office for six hours. So I’m going to do some reading.” He says he especially wants to talk to the municipalities.
Beds already occupied
Lawyers already doubted whether Broekers-Knol’s ‘indication’ was as hard as she made it seem. In the meantime, the reception places have already been arranged. In Gorinchem, a former tax office was hastily made ready (again) for reception, in Enschede an event hall was set up at the former Twenthe airbase and Rotterdam transformed several ships into reception locations. The mayors of those places stated that they were not happy with the direction by the State Secretary, but that they had no choice but to accept it.
Only the municipality of Venray refused to comply with Broekers-Knol’s request, that place did not want to do anything until further investigation had been carried out. At the time of the designation, the municipality was not aware that the cabinet had no legal basis for ordering municipalities to receive asylum seekers. “We have always assumed that the indication was legally correct,” says a spokeswoman for the municipality of Venray. Now that it turns out to be different, the college of mayor and aldermen will hold a meeting about this on Tuesday.
Ahmed Aboutaleb, chairman of the Rotterdam-Rijnmond security region, calls the confession astonishing. “I have read that lawyers are contesting the legal basis of the designation. So it turns out to be true. In the telephone conversation with me, the State Secretary gave the impression that she is giving an indication in a legal sense and not in an administrative sense,” said Aboutaleb, who calls the course of events bad for administrative relations. “I can hold on to the fact that we are doing something good: taking care of people in need. But this is very harmful for the future relationships between central government and municipalities/regions.”
In December, the municipalities of Enschede, Gorinchem, Venray, Alkmaar and the Rotterdam region were still obliged to set up emergency reception locations for a total of 2000 asylum seekers in the short term:
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