Mayors call for rapid relaxation of rules on housing asylum seekers

The 25 mayors of the Security Council want the Cabinet to relax the rules for housing asylum seekers within a few weeks. According to council chairman Hubert Bruls, mayor of Nijmegen, this is necessary because the distribution law is still some time away. If the rules do not become more flexible, more and more municipalities will withdraw from housing refugees, he believes.

There are strict rules for asylum seekers, including education, medical care and welfare. As a result, municipalities sometimes find places but are unable to provide education in the right form. The Education Inspectorate has already reprimanded municipalities for this. "It seems to me that accommodations are really more important than having the right teacher in front of the class," Bruls said. "Any accommodation is preferable to sleeping outside."

Bruls already conferred with State Asylum Secretary Eric van der Burg Friday afternoon. On Friday morning, van der Burg said he did not yet dare to say when his asylum-seeker apportionment law might take effect. The Council of State sharply criticized his law last week, and he must formulate a detailed response to it to both the Tweede Kamer and the Council of Ministers. "This is a lot of work because it is an extensive response," he said.

The Council of State has great difficulty with the Cabinet bill. The plans are unnecessarily complicated and the advisers also doubt the law will work in practice. This means that Van der Burg will have to thoroughly revise the law. By today's Council of Ministers meeting, he had not managed to complete these adjustments. The State Secretary even doubts that the Cabinet will be able to discuss it next week. The following week is recess, which means that a decision may not be made until March 10.

"Very annoying and extremely regrettable," the Security Council believes. Mayors last year strongly pushed for a law that would regulate coercion for municipalities that refuse to make room for asylum seekers. But once the bill was in place, the council and also the Association of Netherlands Municipalities (VNG) already warned that the content was too complex and unclear. Because the municipalities want to get rid of the constant arrangement of crisis emergency shelters as soon as possible.

The sprawling law was supposed to come into force at the beginning of this year, but that chance has long since been lost.