Fourteen Member States of the European Union recently alerted the European Asylum Agency (AUEA) of the arrival of large flows of migrants, mostly from Serbia. They hoped that, despite the focus on the energy crisis, the last summit of Heads of State and Government, on 20 and 21 October, would also be an opportunity to discuss what a Belgian diplomat described as “a new kind of crisis” because, unlike the previous ones (during the war in Syria or the conflict in Ukraine), it does not seem to be linked to any particular event, apart perhaps from the consequences of the return to power of the Taliban in Afghanistan. In the first seven months of 2022, the AUEA recorded some 480,000 asylum applications, an increase of 60% in one year.
The 27 leaders did not have the time or the will to go into this question in depth. And did not get wind of what was happening a few kilometers from the European Council where they were meeting. However, the Belgian capital has been facing, for weeks, a humanitarian crisis which is undoubtedly the most serious it has known.
Fedasil, the federal body that manages applications, has a network of 32,000 places, all of which are now occupied. Since mid-October, its members have therefore been trying, by paying for hotel nights (a practice which goes against its principles and runs the risk, according to its leaders, of attracting new arrivals) and by calling on associations and “citizen hosts”, to deal with the most urgent. This is no longer enough: Brussels has discovered, and this is a first, that unaccompanied teenagers, women and families with young children are now forced to sleep on the streets. Like at least a thousand men, according to estimates by associations working on the front line.
“The members of Fedasil are just as upset as we are”, comments Amélie Deprez, regional coordinator for Doctors of the World, the organization which participates in the “humanitarian hub” of Brussels with the Red Cross, the social SAMU, the Citizen Platform, Doctors without borders and other citizen groups. Fedasil members are required to house asylum seekers pending the examination of their application, but they are no longer able to do so due to a bottleneck in the system. The Office of the Commissioner General for Refugees and Stateless Persons (CGRA), responsible for examining each request, is also overwhelmed.
In the reception centres, foreigners have been waiting for two years, sometimes three, for a decision
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