Netherlands: Refugee Facilities Must Meet EU Standards, Court Rules

Facts

• A Dutch court on Thursday ordered that asylum seekers in government-run centres in the Netherlands must immediately be given "indoor sleeping space, food, water and access to hygienic sanitation facilities," in accordance with EU standards.
• The court also ruled that the government must house vulnerable groups – including families with babies, minors traveling alone, and those in need of medical or psychiatric care – in special facilities capable of providing the support required. Currently, the Netherlands is housing about 30k asylum seekers in emergency and crisis centers.
• The decision comes after refugees organization Vluchtelingenwerk filed a lawsuit in administrative court in The Hague, arguing that hundreds of refugees were forced to sleep outside an asylum reception center in Ter Apel due to a lack of emergency shelters.
• Roughly 700 people have been sleeping outside the center while waiting to register their asylum claims, with conditions reportedly being so bad that the Dutch branch of Doctors Without Borders deployed a team in the country for the first time.
• Despite granting some of Vluchtelingenwerk’s requests, the court rejected a challenge to the preferential treatment of Ukrainian refugees, who currently receive more generous arrangements from the government. The court upheld this on the grounds that the Russian invasion constitutes exceptional circumstances.
• Eric van Der Burg, the minister responsible for the asylum system in the Netherlands, has called for all national municipalities to help accommodate minors as soon as possible. He also conceded that the country hasn't been able to offer asylum-seekers the kind of resources available in previous years.

Sources: Al Jazeera, Reuters, NL Times, ABC, Dutch News, and Washington Post.

Narratives

• Narrative A, as provided by The Guadian. The ongoing refugee crisis in the Netherlands exposes how so-called European values are ill-founded, and that racism still prevails in the continent. Conducting selective immigration practices and segregating refugees caused this crisis, with Ukrainians being treated better than black and brown refugees.
• Narrative B, as provided by DW. Unlike some other countries, the Netherlands is not facing a migrant crisis, only consecutive years of failed government policies. The agencies in charge of refugee intake have faltered miserably and are finally being forced to acknowledge their mistakes, but this is the result of incompetence, not intolerance. The government is now working to build proper accommodation for asylum seekers.