Belgium has been experiencing a so-called "reception crisis" for the past two years. Translated into reality, it means that thousands of asylum seekers are on the streets, in roadside tents, in gardens, or occupied buildings, assisted by a dense network of volunteers. This is because the federal reception system, Fedasil, which is accessed after applying for asylum, does not have the necessary beds. "It all started after a period characterized by a steady increase in asylum applications. Then Covid was added, which had a huge impact because it was not possible to organize all the interviews, the registration center was closed for a while, and the capacity of the reception network decreased," explains Thomas Willekens, of the NGO Vluchtelingenwerk Vlaanderen (Work for Refugees Flanders). "The average processing time for applications increased, as did the number of people entering the system. The result was that there were not enough places to cover the needs. This shortage could have been solved if the government had taken measures from the beginning. But this was not the case, and this caused a snowball effect," Willekens points out.
In detail, at the end of August, Belgium temporarily suspended the reception of male asylum seekers within the Fedasil reception network as a result of the increase in the number of arrivals. In this avalanche, what prevails in fact is the concept of priority, namely that available places are allocated to those who are considered "most vulnerable": families with children, single women, and unaccompanied minors. The rest are left out: "Single adult male international protection seekers are systematically denied access to the reception network and must register on a waiting list," explains Vluchtelingenwerk Vlaanderen's 2022 Aida (Asylum information database) report on Belgium. But not all single men have the same fate, since "priority is given to men who, with the help of a lawyer, have complained before the court that their right to reception has been violated." In the past two years, in fact, a great many applicants have gone to court, and to date, there are more than 8,000 Fedasil convictions nationwide and more than 1,100 provisional measures against the Belgian state ordered by the European Court of Human Rights. Yet, no ruling has been respected by the Belgian state and "even after receiving a positive court order, applicants must wait several months before receiving an invitation to access the reception network," the report points out. "Right now it would take a magic wand to remedy the situation, something that is politically difficult when you have a 7-party government and the current differences between Flanders and Wallonia," Willekens points out.
Although it has a population and size comparable to that of Lombardy, Belgium is a federal state that experiences daily internal separation between the Flemish north (Flanders), where the far-right New Flemish Alliance (Nva) and the Vlaams Belang prevail, and the French-speaking south (Wallonia) where the Labor Party predominates. A federal constitutional monarchy where the king is the head of state and the prime minister is the head of government in a multiparty system, decision-making powers in Belgium are not centralized but distributed among 3 levels of government: the federal government, 3 language communities (Flemish, French, and German-speaking), and 3 regions (Flanders, Brussels-Capital, and Wallonia). Legally, all are equal but have powers and responsibilities in different areas. In a context of separation such as this, where the education system itself has distinct paths, it is quite understandable how difficult it is to reach a synthesis at the federal level that can produce an executive. For example, the current prime minister, Flemish Liberal Alexander De Croo, who succeeded his French-speaking colleague, Sophie Wilmes, has been in office since October 1, 2020, and leads a coalition government renamed "Vivaldi," in homage to the Venetian composer's "The Four Seasons," which brings together seven parties from four political families: these are the country's two liberal parties, the two socialists and two greens (one from Flanders and one from Wallonia, respectively), and the Flemish Christian Democrats from whose ranks the secretary to the Asylum, de Moor, hails. In opposition are mainly the Ptb, the labor party, which is strong in Wallonia and the only political force in the country operating from a unionist perspective, and the two right-wing and far-right Flemish nationalist parties, the New Flemish Alliance (Nva) and the Vlaams Belang, respectively, who excel in Flanders and are pushing for ironclad protection of external borders, strict asylum policies, strengthening of criteria for granting nationality, and a referendum on the Migration and Asylum Pact that the EU is working on. This is the country approaching next year's general elections, which will be held on June 9 along with the European elections, where the migration issue will
be one of the most ridden, especially if the reception crisis continues and if the EU Pact, on which the government is betting everything, should blow up. For now, while the "European way to solve a European problem" is being discussed in the EU buildings in Brussels, on the streets of the same city the reception crisis shows no sign of abating. Indeed, in the past month the avalanche Willekens speaks of has gained even more levels of acceleration. The first, last August 29, when the Secretary of State for Asylum and Migration, Nicole de Moor, made the existing official. "Fedasil in the near future will no longer accept single men in the reception network," she announced on Twitter. The second, on Sept. 13, when the State Council suspends enforcement of de Moor's decision. "At this stage of the proceedings, the State Council considers that this decision does not respect the right to reception conferred on all asylum seekers by the law of January 12, 2007," the documents read. The third is the secretary's response, which vindicates the choice and announces that her policy will not change: "This stop (by the State Council, ed.) does not have the effect of suddenly decreasing the influx or allowing Fedasil to suddenly have thousands of extra places. So I will continue the policy of temporarily not taking in single men, lest there soon be no more room for families with children." What emerges is an institutional clash that on the one hand produces the tent camp in Flagey and many other parts of the city, but on the other makes it clear how the migration issue is a thermometer of the health of democracy and the rule of law in Belgium. "One thing is absolutely certain: the rule of law requires that the executive always respect judicial decisions. In a constitutional state, the exercise of government power is framed by legal norms. Procedural rules prevent arbitrariness and ensure legal certainty," a group of law professors and constitutional experts wrote in a public letter. "When we teach the principle of the rule of law to our students, what can we tell them? That Belgium has not complied with the basic requirements of the rule of law since October 2021 because the government ignores numerous court rulings that oblige it to comply with the law? That it can give way to the demands of a purported 'state of emergency' that has not been further clarified or delimited? (...) We refuse to do so. We call on the government to respect the law and the decisions of the courts and to end the blatant disregard for one of the most important principles of the organization of our state," they conclude.
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