Belgium aspires to implement the strictest migration policy ever to limit asylum applications. But civil society and experts warn it will lead to more chaos, human suffering and higher costs for people in the country.
"When we arrived here, we received very little information from authorities about the process of applying for asylum. They leave you in the dark, hoping you make a mistake in your application, so they can reject your application," one Kurdish woman, Zana, told The Brussels Times.
Zana and her family arrived in Belgium in July 2018 after fleeing Kobani, a Kurdish-majority city in northern Syria, next to the Syria-Turkey border. She spoke of the challenges they faced, from spending their first night sleeping in Brussels-North station to waiting one year for their crucial "personal interview", in which applicants have to justify why they applied for asylum.
"I prepared for our interview, gathering 150 pages of evidence for every question they could ask," she said. "During the interview, I was so stressed. I didn't want to get anything wrong, because I knew it was our only chance to stay in this country. I cried because the pressure was so immense."
She felt tested by the interviewer working for the Office of the Commissioner General for Refugees and Stateless Persons (CGRS), which is in charge of processing requests. "They try to catch you out or find mistakes in your story. There were certain moments when I started to doubt myself."
Mesbah, who fled from Afghanistan and arrived in Belgium in January 2017 at the age of 15, had a similar experience. During his journey to Belgium, he suffered multiple traumas, including having to bury his best friends and being beaten up by police. "During my interview, they asked me all the expected questions, but also tried to trip me up on exact timings and dates of my time on the run, when that whole period of my life was one big blur for me," he told The Brussels Times.
Pressure on society
Both Zana and Mesbah agree that some sort of verification process is needed to ensure people are in actual need of protection. "But I felt the system was designed to deter, not help," Zana said. This procedure is only expected to become more challenging, as Belgium pursues its strictest migration policy ever. The priority is clear: reducing the number of asylum seekers and "controlling" migration.
"We are making our policy stricter because, in the rest of Europe, asylum applications have fallen by 12%, while in Belgium, they are up by 12%," Charlotte Vandecruys, spokesperson for Asylum and Migration Minister, Anneleen Van Bossuyt (N-VA), told The Brussels Times. In 2024, 39,615 people submitted a request for international protection in Belgium.
According to Vandecruys, in around 15,000 cases, people already applied for asylum elsewhere or were even recognised as refugees there. "And yet they travel on to Belgium [to get recognition] because it is easier to get a living allowance and the conditions for family reunification, for example, are much more flexible." NGOs have pointed to the fact that, in many cases, people migrate again due to maltreatment in EU countries, including Bulgaria and Greece.
Credit: Belga / Hatim Kaghat
"All of this puts enormous pressure on our society. The cost of asylum reception is almost €1 billion per year. With Belgium's budgetary situation, this is no sinecure."
Belgium will no longer take in asylum seekers who have received protection elsewhere. It will tighten the rules regarding family reunification (raising income requirements and waiting period), double the capacity of the notorious detention centres, and limit social welfare benefits, tying them to a strict integration programme.
There will also be some structural changes: migration is currently still part of the Federal Public Service (FPS) Interior but will be moved to the FPS Migration, while the four migration services – the Immigration Office, Fedasil, CGRS and the Council for Alien Disputes (RvV) – will be reorganised.
The State says these changes will provide more clarity and tighten up the current asylum application system, ultimately benefitting both society and the asylum seeker. "Sometimes it is more humane to have a controlled asylum-migration policy, rather than allowing people to come here without being able to take them in."
Since 2021, thousands of asylum seekers have been forced to sleep on the streets due to Belgium's failure to provide them with the shelter to which they are legally entitled. The State has been convicted for this ongoing crisis over 10,000 times.
Fewer rights
The CGRS will also receive more political direction in the future. Some critics have argued this means it will no longer be completely independent. "We will certainly take that concern into account, but the minister will not intervene in individual decisions," Vandecruys said.
She noted that the minister can, however, issue guidelines on granting subsidiary protection status – intended for those fleeing from conflict or war – and status of recognised refugee for those who risk personal persecution due to, for example, their religion, political beliefs or sexual orientation.
Asylum seekers' shelter near the Federal Immigration Services building, October 2022. Credit: Lauren Walker
"The recognition rate for refugee status is much higher here than in other European Member States," Vandecruys said. "There is currently a real imbalance."
People granted subsidiary protection status have fewer rights. They also have to wait at least two years before family reunification is possible.
'Even' harder than before
The measures put forward by the new 'Arizona' coalition have been heavily criticised by NGOs and migration experts, who state they jeopardise the rights of asylum seekers.
"I went to Lesbos [Greece] as a volunteer in 2017, and I was outraged by what I saw. At the time, I thought, at least the asylum and migration policy in Belgium is not as bad as here," Marie Doutrepont, a lawyer at Progress Lawyers Network representing asylum seekers, told The Brussels Times. "But the difference between there and here is becoming smaller every day."
This was echoed by Pascal Debruyne, a migration expert at Odisee University. "This policy is certainly even stricter than the previous one," he told The Brussels Times. "It will become virtually impossible for some families to reunite, or it will take many years for someone to reach the income threshold."
For Doutrepont, this decision is the pinnacle of hypocrisy. "The State is essentially saying: 'We will give you [subsidiary] protection because you risk being killed at any minute, but your family will have to wait two years in that war before they can join you here'," she said. "Even if they are not killed in the meantime, these family members will arrive here even more traumatised, making it even more difficult for them to integrate."
Credit: Belga / Hatim Kaghat
The legal assistance in the asylum procedure will be "evaluated": only pooled migration lawyers will be allowed to provide legal assistance. "The level of protection and the quality of the procedure is being scaled back," Debruyne said.
Doutrepont argued that many of the changes signify a "dismantling" of democratic foundations, from the separation of powers, and the constitutional State to the respect for human rights. "I keep telling people that what we are doing now with immigrants and foreign nationals is exactly what will happen to the rest of society tomorrow," she said. "This is a laboratory for the erosion of human rights."
She noted that many Belgians don't care about asylum seeker rights, but insisted that "what is happening now with their rights is exactly what will happen to ours tomorrow."
'Controlling' migration?
Research has shown that stricter migration laws will not effectively deter people from fleeing to a country and applying for asylum. "We know that people mainly leave because they have 'aspirations' or seek safety in combination with the impact of family members or acquaintances/friends/community living in a particular country," Debruyne said
He said this will mainly result in more and longer irregular migration. "Policies always have an impact, but not as policymakers often think: they sincerely believe they are in the driver's seat, which is not consistent with what we know from research."
Zana bolstered this statement. "No matter how difficult it gets to request asylum, it's not going to stop people. Especially if they come from a country where they could be killed or where they cannot be who they are without being punished," she said, adding that many people are not aware of how strict rules are in certain countries before arriving there.
Belgium has started actively informing people through information and "dissuasion" campaigns abroad, including through YouTube, a WhatsApp channel and targeted ads. "We give people honest and correct information," Vandecruys said. "We hope they will circulate these messages between each other, so they know that the government policy has changed."
Debruyne countered this, pointing to research which has shown that these campaigns are a "waste" of public money. "They don't work. In fact, they sometimes produce the opposite of the intended effect."
Hearing about such measures is upsetting to people like Zana and Mesbah, who have been building their lives in Belgium and are working hard to give back to the country, despite the traumas they have lived.
"What I don't understand is why they never consider a more humane approach, so that people are not further traumatised, and can start participating in society and contribute more."
