As soon as a new location is announced, the party’s MPs react in parliament and on social media. Within a few days, a protest follows, attended by party leaders, accompanied by leaflets, petitions and demonstrators from outside the municipality. In Jabbeke, according to Mayor Frank Casteleyn (CD&V), only about ten of the fifty or so protesters were local residents. The same was true in Schilde: there were few local people at the protest.
This protest is also having an impact on local councils. In at least eighteen municipalities, the council opposed the centre either publicly or through official channels, and in at least twelve municipalities, mayors themselves took the matter to court. Such legal proceedings rarely prevent a centre from opening, but they do cause delays, reduced capacity or early closure. This is happening under mayors from almost all political parties.
Experts point to the consequences: an inefficient stop-and-go policy and a distorted picture of a society that is supposedly overwhelmingly opposed to asylum seekers. According to sociologist Dirk Geldof, public support has been “deliberately undermined”. Minister for Asylum and Migration Anneleen Van Bossuyt (N-VA) cites precisely this lack of public support to justify her policy, under which she aims to reduce reception capacity from 34,000 to 12,000 places.
