Dutch move to outlaw 'squatting'

IT IS a scene that has unfolded countless times in the Netherlands. Young people break into a disused building, move in a table, chair and bed, then tell the police they are now the official residents, despite the absence of the owner's permission or plans to pay any rent.

Yesterday, however, the once-respected Dutch tradition of squatting became illegal.

It is the latest pillar of its liberal institutions - such as legal prostitution and cafs that openly sell marijuana - to be abolished or curtailed as the Dutch become more conservative.

In Amsterdam, the epicentre of the movement known in Dutch as "kraken," or "breaking," squatters remained defiant.

"Of course, we're going to resist: resisting is part of what we do," said a young woman calling herself Lilo at a squat in Amsterdam next to the Amstel River.

A study this year by Amsterdam's Free University estimated the Dutch capital has roughly 1,500 squatters, in a city of 750,000.

Mayor Eberhard van der Laan said he plans to gradually empty the city's remaining 200 squats.

"Here and there squatting definitely causes problems for a neighbourhood," he said, though up until now it had been seen as mainly a civil dispute involving only owners and the squatters. As from yesterday, owners can argue squatters are breaking the law, the mayor said. That would "bring us to take action, where in the past we might not have done anything" the mayor added.

Though Dutch cities remain relatively liberal, even by European standards, they are gradually moving away from their free and easy attitudes.

Prostitution is legal but faces more regulation, with Amsterdam closing one third of its brothels. The number of marijuana cafes is in decline, as they face new restrictions to keep them away from schools.

Squatting gained public sympathy after the Second World War during a time of severe housing shortages and anger at property speculators. A Supreme Court ruling in 1971 found entering an unused building is not trespassing. Yet that view changed as the Netherlands grew more prosperous and more sympathetic to business.

"Once squatting was maybe a romantic thing for people to do, but now they have children and jobs. Things have changed," said city councillor Frank van Dalen.

These days most squatters are migrants from eastern and southern Europe "who want a cheap place to live," he said.

At the squat on the Amstel, a former fire department office, the squatters - mostly foreigners - denied pursuing a parasitical lifestyle."The people who are willing to come to a foreign city, with no place to live - to me these are very valuable people, brave people," said Marek Griks, a Pole who drives a cab and lives at a squat with his daughter.

In the past squatting was a wellspring for left-wing activism. It reached a peak on 30 April, 1980, the day of Queen Beatrix's accession. Thousands of squatters fought riot police across Amsterdam. Their motto: "No housing, no crowning."