- Daily & Weekly newsletters
- Buy & download The Bulletin
- Comment on our articles
Related articles
Recent
Popular
Fedasil takes on 130 new staff to cope with asylum demands
Fedasil, the federal agency for the support of asylum-seekers, is hiring 130 new staff “as quickly as possible” to help cope with the stream of new asylum-seekers, a spokesperson said. The announcement came on the day staff at the agency staged a protest against staff shortages.
“Staff at Fedasil are exhausted,” Hilde De Leeuw of the ACV union said. “There is a shortage of staff. At dispatch, they have to find a place for people to stay the same day, but that’s practically impossible. The local centres are also short of staff because there are always new people coming in, and we want to give them decent accommodation.”
Fedasil occupies the same building in the North Station area in Brussels as the Office for Foreigners, which has been inundated with asylum applications this summer. On several days this month, the numbers of applicants – coming mostly from Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and Somalia – have been too high for the office to handle, with people sent away to come back the next day.
Those people – as well as those whose papers have been processed – then turn to Fedasil to find them accommodation.
As part of the union’s action, staff handed out bottles of water and cake to those waiting in line for their applications for asylum to be submitted. The union welcomed the promise of 130 new staff but warned it was not enough.
“We are doing everything possible,” to hire new staff, said Fedasil spokesperson Mieke Candaele. “Three new members of staff have already joined dispatching in the last few weeks. But we also need to be realistic. We can’t just take on someone new from today to tomorrow. The procedure takes time.”
Photo: Asylum seekers in line outside the Fedasil office in Brussels
©Kristof Van Accom/BELGA
Comments
Good for Belgium! Still beats me why the EU Presidency or Mr. Juncker or the Foreign Policy supremo are not convening a Ministerial or Summit to remind the countries of their obligations as members of the Union and to come up with a workable comprehensive policy. Is there not some sort of collective responsibility to deal with this crisis? Seems that it's left to individual countries to cobble together a way of handling the matter. So what is this Union all about if it's not to deal with matters such as this collectively?
The sooner they can be processed, the sooner they can go the CPAS and claim their 1000 euro/month for doing nothing. That's their ultimate goal.
Hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers are slowly moving north. The Kos and Calais problem will soon be our problem. Everyone feels sorry for them but we are also encouraging traffickers. I do not understand why the rich Arabic speaking countries (Gulf states) do not step forward and provide asylum/housing/food etc. (they are culturally and linguistically more similar). The wealthier European countries are already complaining about immigrant problems from poorer European countries. This added burden from countries outside Europe will cause many problems. EU countries do not have sufficient housing for their CPAS and homeless, how will we cope with others who "jump the queue"? Would it not be better to build refugee camps in North Africa and the Gulf States and stop the boats from crossing the Med? Vast numbers of people are making lots of money ferrying immigrants across the sea -- we are aiding and abetting this mafia.
Good for Belgium? How, precisely? Some of them were sent away and told to come back in the morning? Oh the horror. Genuine asylum seekers should not even be getting to Belgium. They are economic migrants and in the few cases where they are not, their claim lays with the first member State they entered.
in 2012,i claimed asylum in brussels,a year later the deputy commissioner of fedasil eva vissers rejected it,i kissed good by to a job in tildonk.
in 2015,the israeli goverment is spying on me at 5.30 am on my way to work in tel aviv,and also on friday at the seashore .
shame on fedasil.their job -my life.