The Secretary of State presented his Policy Paper on Asylum and Migration (2020)

The new State Secretary for Asylum and Migration, Sammy Mahdi (CD&V) presented his General Policy Paper on Asylum and Migration in Parliament on 18 November 2020.

The policy paper emphasizes that this government's challenge is to bring serenity back into the asylum and migration debate. In recent years this debate has often been conducted on the basis of incorrect information. The State Secretary therefore wants to work towards greater transparency, including a site that collects all data on asylum and migration policy.

In addition, the State Secretary also wants to monitor the refugee flows in order to be prepared for peaks in the number of applications. He will also focus more on voluntary return, considerably shortening of the the asylum procedures and on sufficient buffering capacity in the reception area to avoid a continuous increase and decrease in the number of reception places. The resettlement programme will also be structurally strengthened, especially for the most vulnerable people.

Furthermore, the existing legislation - including the Aliens Act, which has been in place for 40 years - must also be refreshed and this will result in a new migration code.

On the website of the House of Representatives, a video recording of the hearing can be found.

The policy paper is only available in French and Dutch and ca be found here.

Publication Date: Fri 20 Nov 2020
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