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| 'Appendix 35' document, granting Willem Groenewegen permission to reside in Belgium until a verdict is reached on his immigration status |
One is not often given the opportunity as a poetry translator to spend an entire month at a translator’s house unless one has a full collection or anthology to translate. However, in late 2012 I was commissioned by a new foundation in Antwerp, Vonk & Zonen, established by Belgian poets Michaël Vandebril, Maarten Inghels et al., to translate a poetry film entitled ‘Circle’, containing the work of 10 different Belgian poets. That was a large enough assignment to put in a bid with the Flemish Foundation for Literature (VFL) to spend a month at their beautiful Art Nouveau translator’s house in Antwerp.
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| VFL Translator's House, Antwerp. Photo from VFL website |
In 2012, I had looked after a friend’s plants in Antwerp for a while, and got to know the city a little better. One thing I discovered: studio apartments here are cheaper than in Amsterdam – the other Dutch-speaking city important to my network. I made a note to look into this if I was ever to spend more time in Antwerp. So, in February 2013, I also went flat-hunting while translating Marc ‘Swoon’ Neys’s poetry film at the translator’s house. After viewing about 10 flats, I signed a two-year rental contract for a small, city-centre studio flat that fit my budget and that was that. Or, so I thought, because soon after the trouble began.
Early March a police offer came to my door to check whether I actually lived there. This proved to be a standard check for newcomers. However, he went on to tell me that newcomers had to report to the Antwerp Immigration Office within 8 days of their arrival. So I did. There, I was told I did not have the right to stay in the country longer than 3 months, and certainly not to sign a 2-year contract for a studio flat if I couldn’t prove that I had a steady job in Belgium. I am a freelancer, and have been since 2000. So no, I didn’t have a job with a Belgian company, but according to European law you are allowed to rent living quarters elsewhere in the EU with one’s own EU passport.
Early March a police offer came to my door to check whether I actually lived there. This proved to be a standard check for newcomers. However, he went on to tell me that newcomers had to report to the Antwerp Immigration Office within 8 days of their arrival. So I did. There, I was told I did not have the right to stay in the country longer than 3 months, and certainly not to sign a 2-year contract for a studio flat if I couldn’t prove that I had a steady job in Belgium. I am a freelancer, and have been since 2000. So no, I didn’t have a job with a Belgian company, but according to European law you are allowed to rent living quarters elsewhere in the EU with one’s own EU passport.
I was handed a notice stating that if I didn’t
leave the country within a month
from the date of the ruling,
I was liable to be arrested and detained.
leave the country within a month
from the date of the ruling,
I was liable to be arrested and detained.
This was flatly denied by the Belgian authorities. Their standpoint: I would be allowed to live there if I could prove I earned enough money to support myself. The application process took 3 months. They had me return to their office to hand in more documents and on both occasions they told me not their office, but the headquarters in Brussels would be making the final decision. All they were doing in Antwerp was compiling my dossier. After completion, the dossier comprising some 50 documents was sent to the Brussels Department of Immigration.
My application was rejected outright 3 months later, in August. The conclusion in Brussels was that as a freelancer, I could not prove I head a steady income and so they expected I would sign on in the near future and prove an unreasonable burden to their welfare system, quoting legislation dating back to 1980. I was also handed a notice stating that if I didn’t leave the country within a month from the date of the ruling, I was liable to be arrested and detained for the purpose of my deportation. This notice scared me beyond belief. I was not given the opportunity to counter their decision. The only options open to you once your application is rejected are to either start up a new application process from scratch if you have new information to add – which I hadn’t, as I had basically handed over any and all information on my personal and financial state of affairs – or to lodge an appeal with the Court of Appeal for Foreigners, the Raad voor Vreemdelingenbetwistingen, also in Brussels.
I stand to hear the court’s ruling
within the next fortnight.
within the next fortnight.
I lodged the appeal through a solicitor and appeared in court on 30th January – coincidentally National Poetry Day in the Netherlands and Belgium. The first Belgian Poet Laureate, Charles Ducal, had been installed the day before. My own solicitor hadn’t been able to make it, so sent a representative. I was allowed to say a few words, and so used my time to explain that I had lodged this appeal because I had not been given the right to reply to the unreasonable, unfair conclusion of the Department of Immigration that I could not prove I wouldn’t become a burden to their welfare system. (Could they honestly prove that I would?!) And that I had been translating Flemish poetry for over a decade, so in my own small way was contributing to the dissemination of Belgian culture. This was duly noted. I have no idea whether this plea of mine did any good. I stand to hear the court’s ruling within the next fortnight.
There are a couple of Catch 22s in the whole application process. Firstly, to open a bank account in Belgium, you need a Belgian ID card. During the ID application process at Immigration I was asked for a Belgian bank account number. My solicitor explained the authorities would be sooner inclined to grant me an ID if they saw transfers into a personal Belgian bank account – money Belgium could then tax. Every Belgian bank I went to in Antwerp refused me a bank account prior to acquiring a Belgian ID. In other words, no bank account without an ID card, no ID without a bank account.
Similarly, the immigration application form stipulates you need to bring proof of Belgian medical insurance. Before, it was enough to bring proof of having applied for insurance, but no longer. For their part, insurance companies do not sign up people who haven’t yet acquired their residence permit. Again, no permit without insurance, no insurance without a permit.
On Wednesday 12th February I was allowed to explain my case on national Belgian radio, on the equivalent of Radio 4. After the broadcast, many people mailed me their opinion and I am inclined to agree with the line of thought that it isn’t so much intent that causes these Catch 22s, but a lack of communication between the Immigration Department on the one hand and banks and insurance companies on the other. However, as long as these conflicting measures exist, the result is that the state secretary for Immigration Maggie de Block’s target of reducing the approval rate from about 50% to 2% will be all the easier to achieve.
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| Willem Groenewegen |
Sources:
Apache.be: online newspaper article (Dutch only) on my case published Tuesday, 11/02/14 (paywall) http://www.apache.be/2014/02/11/belgie-dreigt-nederlandse-dichter-en-andere-eu-burgers-uit-te-zetten/ (available on request)
National Belgian radio broadcast in lunchtime news programme Nieuwe Feiten (New Facts) on Wednesday, 12/02/14, http://www.radio1.be/programmas/nifi (repeat only available on the day)
Newspaper DeMorgen, article dd. 21/08/12 on the newly appointed state secretary’s plans. Article shown to me by my Belgian solicitor in Antwerp
Link to the poetry film ‘Circle’ (trailer with my English subtitles): http://www.vonkenzonen.be/cirkel/