Governance and citizenship

In a letter sent on 22 September to the central state, our associations from Flanders (VVSG), Wallonia (UVCW) and Brussels (AVCB-VSGB), called on the Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel to demand urgent EU financial aid for cities and towns to host refugees as well as to increase the budget of EU asylum fund for the 2015-2016 period. 

As announced by the European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker on 9 September, Belgium will be hosting about 2500 refugees out of the 120,000 in clear need of international protection that will be relocated in different EU member states.

This letter, based on CEMR’s call to activate the AMIF Fund for asylum seekers in European Municipalities, was sent right before the Commission’s proposal to increase financial aid for member states to host asylum seekers: over 800 million euros will be added to the EU budget in 2015 and 900 million to the 2016 budget.

In the coming weeks, this Commission proposal will be voted in the European Parliament and negotiated with the EU Ministers of budget. Member states will therefore have a key role to play to ensure that their towns and regions have the necessary means to properly host asylum seekers. 

CEMR calls on National Associations of local and regional governments to follow this initiative and call their central government to put forward local and regional needs and demands when hosting asylum seekers.