It is also not yet clear where the so-called overflow places will be located, where people can be taken over if it is too busy in Ter Apel’s application center. Van der Burg is now ‘working concretely with a municipality on this. But I want at least four,” he said. “I bet on four, otherwise I will have to find alternatives with the COA. I will continue to discuss them.’
According to him, the situation in Ter Apel is still manageable. “We are less than two thousand people.” This number had been agreed with the municipality of Westerwolde, where the Ter Apel application center is located, as a maximum for the application centre. Last year it was so crowded that new arrivals slept outside the gates of the asylum centre.
Point of attention
According to Van der Burg, a ‘major point of attention’ is the weeks-long backlog of identifying undocumented migrants. While steps have been taken to recover, according to the Secretary of State, there is still a backlog of seven hundred. That’s because the influx is on the rise again, says Van der Burg.
The major maritime disaster off the coast of Greece this week finds the minister “horrifying and terrible, and certainly the one you are hearing now”. That the young men who were on deck could still leave and women and children were in the hold.’ He cannot judge whether the Greek coastguard acted correctly by not intervening before the overcrowded vessel capsized. “Apparently they were afraid things would go wrong then.”
Tunisia
To prevent people from making these kinds of risky journeys – with overcrowded ships or rickety rafts – it is important, he says, to make arrangements quickly with a country like Tunisia, from where many asylum seekers cross the sea.
“Can help. As with the agreement with Turkey, we can also conclude agreements with other countries, so that hopefully people no longer have to cross the crossing like that,’ says Van der Burg. According to the minister, the new agreements being made in Europe will not offer any comfort in the short term.