Epe to fine refugee agency up to €11.4 million over asylum hotel

The local council in Epe is set to fine refugee settlement agency COA a record €63,480 a day until it closes an emergency reception centre for asylum seekers at a hotel in the Gelderland town.

The fine will start from April 22, and will continue to a maximum of €11.4 million.

The agency has been housing 276 asylum seekers at the Fletcher hotel since March 2024. Epe agreed to an 18-month extension in 2024 on condition there would be no further renewals. The permit expired on 20 March, but officials say they have nowhere else to put the residents.

Mayor Tom Horn said the council understood the pressure on the asylum system but had to enforce the original deal. “Residents and businesses have a right to expect us to honour and enforce agreements,” he said.

Local businesses want the hotel back in use before the summer season, in one of the country’s most popular domestic holiday areas.

“We want our hotel back,” Ertan Berdo, head of the Epe branch of hospitality association KHN, told the Telegraaf. The asylum seekers were not the problem, he said, but with the hotel out of action “there are fewer tourists, so the pie to share is smaller.”

Epe is the third council to take formal action against the agency in recent weeks, after Westerwolde, home to the Ter Apel asylum centre, and Hardenberg in Overijssel. The Epe daily rate is the highest of the three.

So far, the COA has paid out €6.5 million in penalty payments, including €5 million last month to Westerwolde.

The refugee agency says fines do not solve the problem. “We can’t put people out on the street,” a spokesperson said. Immigration minister Bart van den Brink recently appealed to councils for more short-term places. Breda, Leiden and Almere have offered some, but there is still a shortage of thousands of beds.