ANPThe town hall of the municipality of Westland
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Broadcasting West
NOS News•yesterday, 09:57•Adjusted yesterday, 10:17
The municipal council in Westland does not intend to cooperate with the dispersal law, which requires municipalities to accommodate asylum seekers if necessary. This is what a majority of the council says Broadcasting West.
Westland has more than 110,000 inhabitants and should accommodate 700 asylum seekers according to the dispersal law. “We cannot even house our own young people, the elderly and migrant workers. And then we now have to accommodate 700 asylum seekers. That is simply impossible to explain to ordinary citizens,” says Guus Bakker, party leader of VVD Westland.
Later today, the Senate will vote on the dispersal law. It is already known that there is a majority in favor of the law. Remmert Keizer, group leader of GemeenteBelang Westland: “We will not allow anything to be imposed on us. There is no support for this.” FvD and Local Political Federation Westland agree. According to Keizer, voters in Westland say no to an asylum seekers’ center.
“We decide for ourselves what we do with our space, and there is simply no room here. We will do everything we can to stop this decision and will not allow anything to be imposed on us, certainly not by a Senate that should have decided differently.”
Mayor’s response
“We are simply dealing with a unitary state, laws are passed and governments have to implement them. The political game can be played quietly, but ultimately the law will have to be implemented,” Mayor Bouke Arends said in a response to Omroep West .
The three coalition parties think differently about this. “Local residents are going to litigate,” expects VVD member Guus Bakker. “Then it will still take a very long time before anything is achieved.”
D66, CDA, GroenLinks and PvdA are in favor of implementing the law. Benjamin Hofland, party leader of D66: “Within a municipality that is so large and has so many inhabitants, implementation is challenging, but certainly feasible.”
Political reporter Marleen de Rooy explains how the distribution law works:
This is how the controversial distribution law works
Expert John Bijl expects that the process surrounding the implementation of the dispersal law will be the same. “How long it takes depends on the minister’s patience.”
