Fines to punish overcrowding are pointless
The Dutch Central Agency for the Reception of Asylum Seekers (COA) has been ordered to pay fines to the municipality of Westerwolde for overcrowding at the Ter Apel registration centre. Wim Voermans, Professor of Constitutional and Administrative Law, commented on the measure on Dutch current affairs radio programme ‘Sven op 1’: ‘The government is intent on creating chaos.’
Last week, a court ruled that COA must pay the municipality of Westerwolde €50,000 every time more than 2,000 asylum seekers are staying at the centre in Ter Apel. This amount could reach a maximum of €5 million. According to Professor Voermans, the measure is pointless: ‘Fines of €15,000 have been tried before. They had no effect. A fine of €50,000 won’t work either.’
Voermans is frustrated at the government’s policy: 'They’re intent on creating chaos, using it to explain that we have an asylum crisis.’ The professor believes that COA is not being helped by local and national government to find new reception places. He therefore also understands why the court took this decision: 'The central government does have options to create more reception places, but they don’t want to do that. That has everything to do with the dispersal Act that will perhaps be repealed.'
Learn more?
Listen to the interview on Sven op 1 (in Dutch)
Read the news item on Radio 1 (in Dutch)
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