How will the Dutch government solve the asylum crisis?

In the coming months, municipalities must make 20 000 houses available for asylum seekers. In the coming years, no less than 730 million euro will be allocated to combat the asylum crisis. This involves emergency accommodation, flexible housing, integration and tackling troublemakers. For the time being, there will be no end to asylum.

It is unclear where the 20 000 houses will come from. Throughout the country, there is a large housing shortage. Former member of the European Parliament Lucas Hartong commented: “This disaster cabinet is crazy!

Journalist Annelies Strikkers is convinced that the Population Movement Act and new coercive asylum legislation will be abused. “Although the introduction of the Population Movement Act is intended to ensure the reception of Ukrainian refugees, the asylum crisis is being used as an argument to deploy this legislation and possibly other far-reaching articles,” she warned in a Twitter thread.

With articles that have not yet been activated, Dutch citizens can be forced to move and a mayor can confiscate any home.

Strikkers pointed out that State Secretary Van der Burg and Ministers Hugo de Jonge and Bruins Slot are working on new legislation in order to be able to enforce asylum reception by municipalities according to dictates.

In the first six months of this year, 195 200 asylum seekers came to the Netherlands. The influx is now 70 percent higher than in 2021. Meanwhile, Dutch people often wait eight to 15 years before they have a chance of finding social housing and the housing market is totally saturated.

“Looking at it all – think also of the expropriation of farmers – one can conclude that there is a process underway to disrupt the national culture and population composition,” Strikkers noted. “And the government succeeds in this by creating crises that are ‘solved’ with restrictive legislation. Very worrying.”