Photo: Municipality of Zaanstad
People who lived in Ukraine with a temporary residence permit and fled to the Netherlands when Russia invaded the country had to leave the Netherlands no later than today, following a ruling by the Council of State. But their status remains unclear after court decisions in appeals went against the Council of State, so they will remain for the time being. In Zaanstad this concerns 41 people.
Fourteen of them have now applied for asylum in the Netherlands and can therefore stay anyway. All but three so-called third-country nationals live in the center of Zaandam in the former UWV building Saendenborch, where almost 400 Ukrainian refugees have been accommodated since November last year. Several courts have ruled that third-country nationals are entitled to the same protection as Ukrainians received in the Netherlands and that they may not be deported. Other courts followed the ruling of the highest administrative court in their judgments. The court in Amsterdam has doubts and has requested an explanation from the Court of Justice of the European Union in Luxembourg, the highest European court.
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Because the courts contradict each other, the cases will probably end up back before the Council of State. He wants to handle all cases together, because they deal with the same question. It is not yet known when that will happen. Third-country nationals for whom the court has determined that they must leave are not yet allowed to wait for the appeal to the Council of State in the Netherlands. Zaanstad will not deport people because of all the uncertainty and will wait to see what the future will bring.
