Minister must reverse decision to cut budget of asylum aid organization, court rules

The court has ordered that asylum minister Marjolein Faber must temporarily reverse the 21 million euro cut that she wanted to implement for the refugee support organization, VluchtelingenWerk. The minister did not give the organization “reasonable terms to take measures to adequately replace the change in subsidy,” the judge ruled a day after the summary proceedings were served in the court in Amsterdam. The minister must continue to subsidize VluchtelingenWerk until the end of April, as was the case until 2025.

The court also ruled that the subsidy decision “did not meet legal requirements.” Vluchtelingenwerk was given 34 million euros by the government in 2024 for the legal guidance of asylum seekers while they submit their asylum applications.

That budget consisted of a budgeted amount of more than 12 million euros, supplemented with money that was paid later based on the number of asylum seekers the organization helped. This had been higher than anticipated over the last few years, which led to a back payment of 21 million euros. Faber decided to pay no more than a set fee of 13 million euros from 2025.

Vluchtelingenwerk already objected to this decision in the summer and said that the cut would lead to staff members losing their jobs after March. The organization said they cannot adequately do the task they currently do for the government with this budget.

This would lead to other organizations having to take over certain tasks, but no decisions had been made about who was doing what when it came to asylum seekers. The aid organization accused the minister of “improper management,” and the judge agreed with this statement.

In her ruling, the judge pointed out to the minister that the recipient of a subsidy "must in any case be given a reasonable period of time to arrange certain matters that are the result of the subsidy change, such as dismissing staff.”

The judge ruled that Faber did not comply with this. "There is still no clarity about the content of the phase-out plan, and because VluchtelingenWerk is part of a migration chain, it cannot take the measures necessary to absorb the subsidy change."