Dutch Minister of Asylum and Migration of the Netherlands Marjolein Faber was given a few billion euros extra in the Spring Memorandum to house asylum seekers in hotels and cruise ships.
Some 10,000 asylum seekers now “endlessly vacation” in what Marianne Zwagerman in De Telegraaf calls “extremely expensive” hotel rooms.
According to Zwagerman, over 100 hotels and cruise ship owners are benefiting from this scheme and “are laughing their heads off” as the government currently pays far more than an average Booking.com user, with rates breaching €300 per night.
The bill for catering for asylum seekers staying in other places is also getting completely out of hand.
Citing one hotel in Rijswijk, she says that while it was once bustling with businessmen, it is “now full of asylum seekers.” She also takes a jab at the EU’s Green deal: “Formerly full of Shell employees who flew in from all over the world to be retrained on the production of oil and gas. But yes, a country that drives away businesses, bans fossil energy, and opens its borders to everyone ends up with hotels full of asylum seekers instead of businessmen.”
“It is a nice place. Our beds are washed for us, we get food, and we get help with everything we need to arrange,” says Ukrainian Yevheniia, who has been living in the Rijswijk hotel for three years with her husband and children. Zwagerman notes that she hopes to stay in the Netherlands even after the war.
Sadly, migrant workers from within the EU are treated drastically differently, in what Zwagerman calls a “modern slave industry run by rock-hard temp agencies.” Low wages, hard work, no guarantees, and no future. As for posh hotel rooms with inclusive meals and free cleaning, well, that is a pipe dream for many of these European migrant workers.
A 42-year-old female Polish migrant worker, Julia, whose story Zwagerman notes was told by RTV Utrecht, sleeps in a homeless shelter, “scared and lonely, with a drunk neighbor next door.” She had moved to the Netherlands for more opportunities, but got picked up by one of the agencies that eagerly recruit Eastern Europeans looking for a better life and in need of a job.
Despite working in the Netherlands for 12 years, she had no permanent contract and no savings. Then, she lost her warehouse job for being too slow. Returning to Poland is not an option either. Her family there does not have the means to accommodate her.
“No work means no shelter. Sick for a week? F**k off. Ten others are waiting for your job.” Julia was apparently “lucky,” as many migrant workers sleep outdoors in tents. Zwagerman says an update from RTV Utrecht indicated that Julia found new work. One may ask how many haven’t.
The Dutch commentator then ties the migrant crisis to the pro-war fever common throughout Europe, where more war inevitably means more refugees. A real boon for the miliary-industrial complex as well as the lucrative refugee-industrial complex.
She writes the Dutch government is busy prepping for war. Mark Rutte, former Dutch PM and current NATO secretary general, is prepping for the NATO summit in The Hague and rallying members to spend hundreds of millions more on war. Of course, all this only means more migrants fleeing and in need of work.
“For asylum seekers, the hotels in The Hague have no room for the time being, all rooms are reserved for the NATO circus where world leaders meet to discuss even more war. So that even more refugees will come our way. Because peace is out of fashion and war is hip,” writes Zwagerman.
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