TUESDAY, 30
JANUARY 2024 - 12:00
BBB: Send refugees back to safe parts of Ukraine;
€600 mil. needed for asylum shelter
The BBB
believes the government should give serious consideration to returning
Ukrainian refugees to safe parts of the country. “We cannot accommodate
everyone here,” said BBB MP Mona Keijzer in a parliamentary debate on asylum
and migration. State Secretary Eric van der Burg (Asylum Affairs) thinks he’ll
need at least 600 million euros extra this year to accommodate asylum seekers,
he said in the debate.
Ukraine has
been at war with Russia for almost two years. Keijzer also wanted to know the
government’s position on the possible repatriation of Ukrainian conscripts to
Ukraine if the country were to request it. According to the MP, 650,000
Ukrainian conscripts have fled their home country and are now living in various
European countries, including the Netherlands.
D66
parliamentarian Anne-Marijke Podt immediately rejected Keijzer’s idea to send
back Ukrainian refugees. Podt believes it is not up to politicians to determine
which parts of a country are safe during a war. GroenLinks-PvdA MP Julian
Bushof called the BBB’s idea “new and worrying.” He called it incomprehensible
that the BBB is thinking about sending refugees back to a country at war.
Keijzer
also said that Ukrainians should start paying rent. She called it “completely
inexplicable” that refugees do not have to pay rent and healthcare costs, but
low-income households do.
More money
for asylum shelters
This year,
at least 600 million euros extra is needed to accommodate asylum seekers, State
Secretary Van der Burg said in the debate. He added that he might have to come
to parliament again in the spring with another request for additional budget.
The PVV,
among others, thinks the extra budget is far too much. However, PVV MP Gidi
Markuszower insisted that it would only become clear whether the PVV agreed
with the extra money when the matter was voted on.
NSC, BBB,
and VVD, the parties negotiating with the PVV about forming a new Cabinet, also
have difficulty with the amount. NSC called it incomprehensible that the budget
for the reception of asylum seekers is too low every year. “Why is that?” NSC
MP Caspar Veldkamp wanted to know from the State Secretary.
Van der
Burg listed the three leading causes. First, emergency shelters for asylum
seekers are much more expensive than regular shelters. A regular shelter costs
approximately 30,000 euros per year compared to around 6,000 euros for a place
in an emergency shelter. Since the start of the reception crisis in 2021, many
asylum seekers have been living in emergency shelters.
In
addition, sheltering child asylum seekers is expensive. Unaccompanied minors
are housed in small-scale facilities and need good guidance, Van der Burg
explained. The influx of unaccompanied children was also significantly higher
last year at 5,804 than the 4,207 in 2022.
On top of
that, the influx of asylum seekers has been higher than estimated for years.
“If you get 50,000 people, while you assume structurally 35,000 people, then a
problem arises,” said the State Secretary.
PVV, NSC,
VVD, BBB, and JA21 want to limit the influx. The current numbers are
“unsustainable,” said Veldkamp and Keijzer (BBB), among others. NSC reiterated
that the aim should be a migration balance and a target figure.
NSC wants a
maximum of 50,000 migrants a year, including international students, knowledge
migrants, and asylum seekers. BBB wants to admit a maximum of 15,000 asylum
seekers per year in the Netherlands. The PVV wants an asylum stop but realizes
that this is not feasible at the moment. The VVD does not want to mention
numbers but believes that the influx of asylum seekers should be significantly
reduced.
The Tweede
Kamer, the lower house of the Dutch parliament, will vote on the extra budget
in two weeks.
Reporting by ANP
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