BRUSSELS: Amidst a shortage of accommodation, Belgium will no longer give shelter to single male asylum seekers after the government announced a temporary suspension on Tuesday.
Belgium is facing an acute asylum crisis as the number of people arriving there rose sharply compared to last year, putting pressure on an already creaking system.
Announcing the temporary suspension, Minister of State for Asylum and Migration Nicole de Moor said Belgium expected a “growing influx of families and children” seeking shelter.
“The number of families with children applying for asylum has increased sharply in recent days,” said de Moor, a Flemish Christian Democrat.
“I want to completely avoid children ending up on the street in winter,” she added.
She did not say how long the suspension by Fedasil, the federal agency responsible for asylum seekers, would last.
De Moor also pointed to what Belgium sees as unequal sharing of the migrant burden in the European Union.
“Our country has been doing more than its fair share for a long time. This cannot continue as 19,000 asylum seekers have registered in Belgium this year compared to 1,500 in Portugal, a country with a similar population to Belgium,” she said.
De Moor also pointed to Sweden as another country that registered “very few asylum applications” and said migration pressure on Europe had increased overall this year.
In early June, EU countries reached agreement on a long-stalled overhaul of Brussels’ asylum rules, which aims to share the burden of hosting asylum seekers across the bloc, with those who refuse having to pay money to those who do.
However, there are still passionate discussions among member states about its adoption, and the agreement also requires adoption by the European Parliament.
