The anti squatting bill sailed through the senate without a murmur on Tuesday, highlighting the changing influence of this once mass-scale movement, writes the Volkskrant.

The relative ease with which the bill became law does not really do justice to the importance the squatters’ movement once had. Its at times disruptive influence has dwindled to a ritual presence in the senate’s public gallery and a few token squats around the country. So far large scale protests against the ban have been conspicuous by their absence.
The squatters’ movement no longer wields much influence on society.
How different it all was in the seventies. The squatters put the lack of housing back on the agenda and protested against property speculation. They established a flourishing underground culture in Amsterdam which drew backpackers from far and wide and support among the population for what they were doing became widespread enough for politicians to sit up and take notice. The squatters’ movement became the linchpin for a much wider protest movement. It forced the authorities to take action against owners who left their property standing empty. In that sense, the movement has left its mark on society. The few remaining ‘legalised squats’ which have turned into lively cultural centres bear witness to the fact.
The squatters’ success became part of their downfall. In their heyday they argued among themselves about the direction the movement was to take: cooperation with the authorities was bitterly opposed by radicals who considered the authorities a part of the problem. Eventually, the radicals won. They purposely confronted the authorities in order to be seen as the victims of government repression which resulted in the bitter battles that were fought in Amsterdam during the eighties. Everybody remembers the images of the riots that broke out when the police stormed the Vondelstraat squat, the burning tram at the time of the Lucky Luyk eviction and, first and foremost, the events surrounding the coronation of queen Beatrix on April 30th 1980. (Geen woning, geen kroning: No house, no coronation).
As time went by the squatters’ movement became more inward looking. It gradually lost public sympathy. New anti squatting legislation was closing in. In 1987 squatters could be subpoenaed by anonymous house owners and in 1994 homes that had been left to stand empty for less than a year could no longer be turned into squats. Tuesday’s law which stipulates a maximum penalty of one year for squatters is the final nail in the squatters’coffin.
Local councils and de Landelijke Woonbond, which represents home owners and rent payers, as well as temporary Amsterdam mayor Lodewijk Asscher have already said they are not in favour of enforcing the law on a big scale. The Amsterdam council’s VVD and GroenLinks members don’t see eye to eye on how squatters should be handled. This law seems to have no more than a symbolic significance, much like the squatters’ movement at present.
This is an unofficial translation