Opposition MPs and local councils have slammed the compromise agreement struck by the two government coalition parties about providing emergency accommodation for homeless refugees.

Labour and the VVD agreed on Wednesday that shelters should be provided in the five big cities which refugees without documents can use for a ‘few weeks’ before reporting to the deportation centre in Ter Apel. Centres operated in other towns and cities must close or the councils will lose government funding for integration issues.

Groningen, Leiden, Nijmegen and Arnhem councils have already said there will be major practical problems and do not agree to closing their emergency shelters.

Katwijk mayor Jos Wienen, who chairs the local authorities association’s asylum advisory committee, said the government should have involved councils in the talks far earlier.

The decision to concentrate refugees in five city shelters and Ter Apel does not make sense, he told television programme Nieuwsuur. ‘This means people in Groningen will have to go to Utrecht and then back to Ter Apel,’ he said.

In addition, the agreement will not solve the problem of homeless refugees in the case of people who cannot or refuse to go back to their country of origin.

Groningen’s acting mayor Ton Schroor described the deal as a ‘bizarre compromise’. ‘People will still end up on the streets,’ he said. Arnhem council official Henk Kok said the deal is unworkable. ‘We will continue to offer accommodation because we can’t not do so,’ he said.

Amsterdam

‘I support bed and board and I still do,’ Amsterdam’s mayor Eberhard van der Laan says in the Volkskrant. ‘That means we are meeting the bottom line in humanitarian terms. No cabinet letter will stop me doing this.’

‘This is a stupid and unworkable compromise,’ said Jan Paternotte, who leads the D66 Liberals in Amsterdam. The deal does nothing to solve the problem of the people who cannot be deported, he said.

Lawyer Pim Fischer, who represents a number of failed asylum seekers, said the agreement is a step backwards. ‘The European Committee for Social Rights was very clear,’ he said. ‘The government may not attach any conditions to shelter provisions.’