The coffee machine and chest freezer of the former State Secretary for Asylum and Migration, Nicole de Moor (CD&V), will be auctioned this weekend. They were confiscated last year from the office in an escalation of Belgium's ongoing asylum shelter crisis.
Since autumn 2021, Belgium has been failing to systematically provide shelter to asylum seekers in the country, despite them being legally entitled to this whilst their applications are processed. The migrant reception crisis has continued unresolved since then, resulting in thousands of people sleeping rough. The Belgian State has been repeatedly convicted for this.
Little heed was being paid to the convictions, so periodic penalty payments were imposed by courts to force the State to comply with the convictions. However, the total amount of court fines to the State was rising. Finally, government property was removed by bailiffs to compensate for the outstanding fines in January 2024. A bailiff took a freezer and coffee machine from De Moor's office.
More than 14 months later, both items can be bought through an action, starting at 13:00 on Friday 21 March. The auction will go ahead at Salle des ventes Bruxelles in Anderlecht. Bidding for each item will start at €10. "The fact that we are finally able to sell these items is more than merely a symbolic act," Marie Doutrepont, a lawyer at Progressive Lawyers Network representing asylum seekers, told The Brussels Times.
Credit: Auctionline
"We wanted to take this right to the end and prove to the State that, if you do not comply with the law or court decisions and if you do not pay the fines, then there will be consequences," she added. "It is not okay to simply ignore the law and for nothing to happen. That is why we had these items confiscated and are now selling them."
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A report by various NGOs working with refugees on the ground recently has revealed alarming figures which highlight the crisis is far from over.
More than 10,000 rejections of shelter requests were recorded in 2024, despite legal obligations. This left an average of 3,000 people per month without shelter. Almost 1,300 asylum seekers were forced into homeless shelters, double the number in 2023, placing an extra burden on social services.
"Without shelter, people become isolated and cannot participate in language classes, look for work or find a stable home. This means they remain dependent on emergency aid for a long time," Refugeework Flanders (Vluchtelingenwerk Vlaanderen) said.
