Why it just doesn’t want to work with the second application center 04:30 in Binnenland Since 2021, there has been talk of a second application center to relieve Ter Apel. On Monday, the six remaining aldermen resigned in Alkmaar because of the plans for such a central reception location.

• Rolinde Hoorntje

  editor Asylum Affairs

For the time being, there will be no second registration center in Alkmaar to relieve Ter Apel. That should have eased the pressure on Ter Apel and helped prevent a second reception crisis. On Monday evening, the six remaining aldermen in Alkmaar resigned during a special council meeting, after opposition party D66 had submitted a motion to that effect.

A few days before, alderman Ad Jongenelen had already submitted his resignation after his party BAS had left the coalition. The local party thinks the asylum policy goes much too far, party chairman Ben Bijl told NH Nieuws.

The end of January tweeted State Secretary Van der Burg (Asylum): “Really very happy that the Alkmaar council is proposing this to the city council. This can help the shelter in the Netherlands enormously.”

Previously, the government had already failed in Bant in the Noordoostpolder. Why is it not possible to find a location for a second Ter Apel?

Local support

The motives of municipalities for not agreeing to a so-called Central Reception Location (a location for the identification and registration of asylum seekers) are diverse and largely ‘situational’, writes State Secretary Van der Burg in response to parliamentary questions on this subject. have been set.

This concerns, for example, agreements that the mayor and aldermen have made with the municipal council about the opening of new locations and the preservation and closure of existing locations.

According to Van der Burg, local support plays an increasingly important role. “There is also the impression that an application center is a large-scale location for which no or insufficient social support can be found.”

Ultimately, it is up to the municipal council to approve or reject an application center or another type of reception location. The Central Agency for the Reception of Asylum Seekers (COA) is currently in talks with one other municipality about a central reception location, a spokesperson said.

Talks are being held with the municipality of Noordoostpolder, previously mentioned as a potential municipality in which such an extra registration center would be built, about a reception place for following family members. There will also be such a place in the municipality of Zevenaar. Family members of residence permit holders are already being accommodated in hotels there.

No location in Alkmaar for the time being

In Alkmaar, such a Central Reception Location could be set up with room for 250 asylum seekers, where the identification and registration of refugees could take place. At the end of January, the Municipal Executive of Alkmaar announced that it had received a letter from the COA with the request to use the old tax office on Robonsbosweg as a reception location where asylum seekers would stay for about a week.

The mayor of Alkmaar has already said that he will not make any decisions about the new location until there is a new council.

Work is now underway on a new college, but it could be weeks or months before it is ready. This means that no decisions will be made for the time being about a new location to relieve Ter Apel. It also means that the pressure on Ter Apel increases when two large locations close in mid-April: the cruise ship in Velsen and the temporary shelter in Biddinghuizen.

Threatening to close Ter Apel

In Westerwolde, the municipality in which Ter Apel is located, municipal councilors threaten in a press release to close Ter Apel if there is not soon more clarity about, among other things, a second registration location.

The municipality also wanted guarantees from State Secretary Van der Burg that people would not again have to sleep in front of the application center this year. He was unable to give that during a visit to Ter Apel last week. Yesterday, during the Security Council, the State Secretary announced that 2,000 additional reception places are needed before 1 April.

Westerwolde has already started a mediation process with the COA about terminating the administrative agreement on the asylum reception. Formally, this agreement can only be terminated by Ter Apel in 2030, but a majority of the local government parties threaten to terminate the contract earlier because the COA does not comply with the agreements.

The condition for this is that both parties have first gone through mediation. “The agreements that have resulted from this are now being put on paper and then submitted to the council for approval,” says Marco Visscher of Gemeentebelangen Westerwolde.