Two more days of debate and one vote, and then it will become clear whether the dispersal law can serve as a solution to the asylum reception crisis from next month. The viability of the law depends on two votes, of which it is not yet clear whether they will come and from which side.
This Monday and Tuesday, the Senate will debate the dispersal law, which has been hotly debated since the summer of 2022. The law was then announced by State Secretary Eric van der Burg (Asylum, VVD), because too few municipalities made permanent reception places available for asylum seekers on their own initiative. The visible result was hundreds of asylum seekers who were forced to sleep outside the gates of the registration center in Ter Apel.
According to Groningen administrators, the still dire situation in asylum reception is “knowingly” being maintained by “the (outgoing) cabinet, the national representatives who keep each other in check and the municipal councils in the majority of the municipalities in the country” , they wrote last week in an urgent letter to Van der Burg and outgoing minister Dilan Yesilgöz (Justice and Security, VVD).
What is certain is that if the Senate votes on the law, there will be a roll-call vote – individual senators then cast their votes, instead of voting per faction. This doesn't happen often in the Senate. In the Senate, supporters of the law (GroenLinks-PvdA, CDA, D66, SP, Christian Union, Party for the Animals and Volt) have 36 seats, but at least 38 seats are needed for a majority. One-man factions OPNL and 50Plus have not yet announced their color. State Secretary Van der Burg “has so far assumed” that Auke van der Groot of OPNL will vote in favor of the law, he said on Friday after the cabinet meeting. It is thought that 50Plus senator Martin van Rooijen will follow the CDA and announce himself at the last minute as a supporter of the dispersal law. Both senators could not be reached for comment.
Fractions of VVD and BBB
The VVD and BBB factions, where there are whispers in the corridors that there are dissident senators, will be watched with more tension. Dissident, because their national party leaders have expressed their opposition to the dispersal law. For example, a motion by VVD leader Dilan Yesilgöz, co-signed by PVV, NSC and BBB, caused a stir in mid-December during the debate in the House of Representatives about the election results. The parties called on the Senate not to consider the dispersal law, so as not to hinder the formation of a new cabinet. After much criticism, the call was replaced with a request to put the bill on hold.
The Senate did not care about that. Other senators noticed that Arie Griffioen (BBB) has prepared well in recent months and was gathering information until the last minute. Possibly as 'ammunition' to convince his group to support the distribution law. “I understand that this is what people think,” Griffioen responds. According to him, his thorough “preparation” should be sought in the fact that he is the asylum spokesman for his group. “Then you can expect me to prepare very well.”
His party has long taken an ambivalent position about the dispersal law. BBB says it wants to stand up for rural municipalities that receive many asylum seekers, and believes it is high time that large municipalities, especially in the Randstad, took more responsibility. On the other hand, party leader Caroline van der Plas voted against the dispersal law in the House of Representatives and it can be read in the party program that the asylum influx must first be drastically reduced before a fair distribution of asylum seekers can be discussed. Griffioen acknowledges that intake and reception are “inextricably” linked. But he also emphasizes that the distribution law is “not about inflow”.
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Visit to Ter Apel
At the beginning of January, a delegation of senators went to Stadskanaal a working visit to an emergency crisis shelter location. Stadskanaal came to Ter Apel's aid in early December by making very temporary asylum accommodation available. Those involved call it opposite NRC a “very impressive” visit, if only because the “distressing conditions” in the asylum reception were visible. Farah Karimi of GroenLinks-PvdA saw that the directors present made a “heavy appeal” to the senators “to adopt the dispersal law”.
The presence of the mayors of Groningen and Westerwolde, COA director Milo Schoenmaker and an IND manager was labeled by JA21 senator Annabel Nanninga as a “lobby meeting for the coercive law”, although she says she understands them “very well from their position”. . The directors were “of course not neutral, but factual,” responds the Groningen King's Commissioner René Paas. He thinks that senators from BBB and VVD also stood there “because they probably thought it was useful.”
BBB is now negotiating as a small party (seven seats) with PVV, VVD and NSC about a possible coalition. The Senate is Caroline van der Plas's most important asset, where BBB is the largest with sixteen seats. She must make good on that trump card: a Senate faction that votes against the party line, especially on a sensitive subject such as asylum, has a weakening effect. “We know very well that it is happening,” says Griffioen. But his group is “now working on the content”; Only after the debate will discussions be held about how the vote will take place and its possible party political consequences, he emphasizes. Individual BBB senators are free to deviate from the party line. This is possible, for example, if they have “moral or ethical objections”, group leader Ilona Lagas said in NRC last month. Strictly speaking, the Senate should not make a political judgment about a law, but should primarily look at feasibility and enforceability.
If the Senate votes down the dispersal law next week, Griffioen says, the emergency situation in the asylum reception area will remain. If the law does pass, he says, “the choice will in any case be to reduce” that problem. During the working visit to Stadskanaal, René Paas thinks he saw what he hoped for among senators: “That they form an independent judgment about what is going on in the asylum reception.”
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