ReliefWeb

The Belgian Aliens Office has introduced a quota allowing no more than 50 people per day for registration of asylum seekers at the “Petit-Château” / “Klein Kasteeltje” in central Brussels, which serves as the new temporary registration location as of 3 December 2018.

As a result of the cap on the number of asylum application registrations, more than one hundred people including families with children are queuing outside the facility every day, many of them unsuccessfully.

Several civil society organisations have brought an action before the Council of State to annul the measure. Following the government reshuffle after the departure of the N-VA from the ruling coalition, they have also appealed to the new Secretary of State for Asylum and Migration, Maggie De Block, to discontinue the measure and reinstate effective access to the asylum procedure.

The State Secretary has stated that, although the policy is not to be revisited, the Aliens Office would examine the possibility of gradual increase of the quota with the aim of protecting vulnerable persons.