Minister paying damages for integration fiasco
Integration Minister Ella Vogelaar is paying damages to the language institutes that were to teach Dutch to thousands of immigrants. Because the integration requirement is effectively non-existent, they threaten to go bankrupt.
The previous cabinet, under pressure from Vogelaar’s predecessor Rita Verdonk, decided that around 500,000 people would have to have Dutch lessons in the coming years. The requirement was brought in for immigrants who either bring up young children or cannot get a job because they do not know any Dutch.
The municipalities are supposed to send residents to the lessons. The language bureaus with which they signed contracts are however waiting in vain for students. As a result, they made a loss of 40 million euros last year. Vogelaar is now paying back one-third of this.
The costs were incurred for hiring locations and appointing staff. Some language bureaus in Amsterdam only received two or three students in one year.
The capital and other cities overwhelmingly have leftwing municipal executives who are against the language requirement. They therefore sent almost nobody to the lessons.
Vogelaar has according to critics neglected to order the municipalities to cooperate with the law. Her compensation of around 24 million euros is not damages compensation in the legal sense but a political gesture.
Vogelaar considers the municipalities and the language bureaus themselves are guilty as well. Amsterdam Alderman Lodewijk Asscher (Finance) however indicated that Amsterdam will not give the language bureaus a cent. “It is great that the minister is giving money, but we will not. I prefer to invest in the children in our city.”
Source: NIS News, 4 July 2008
