Denmark’s new migration policy

The Danish Parliament approved a bill by the President to move asylum seekers’ centres abroad, which immediately found opposition from Brussels and the UN

The Social Democrats party in 2019 won the elections in Denmark thanks to a stringent line on immigration, justifying their position by saying that migration flows should not disrupt the social fabric, showing how integration and welfare are interlinked. Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen had already presented to the Danish Parliament at the end of 2020 her government’s goal of achieving zero asylum seekers in the country. To demonstrate this very rigorous policy, Denmark has always been characterised, regardless of the political colour of its governments, by a very strict approach to immigration. Denmark differentiates itself also from the other Scandinavian states; it is no coincidence that, if one looks at the figures for 2015, the year of the height of the refugee crisis throughout the European Union, Denmark took in just over 21,000 refugees, which was equal to only one-eighth of all the migrants that were taken in by Sweden.

To justify the choice of setting the target of “zero asylum seekers”, the left-wing Prime Minister, who is nevertheless inflexible on the issue of immigration, presented the will and the need not to put her social cohesion at risk. She also showed how in 2020, there were only 1547 asylum seekers, which is the lowest figure since 1998; in comparison, the UK took in more than 31,000 would-be refugees.

The Minister for Immigration, Mattias Tesfaye, attributed the drastic drop in immigration in Denmark to the government’s choices, thus ruling out the possible variant of Covid-19. The minister also stressed the need to speed up the deportation of illegal immigrants by closing its national borders. “If you apply for asylum in Denmark, you know that you will be sent back to a country outside Europe, and so we hope that people will stop applying for asylum in Denmark,” said Rasmus Stoklund, Parliament’s spokesman for immigration and integration, second to Reuters. Denmark has yet to sign an agreement with a partner country.

The decision of the Copenhagen Parliament led to various reactions at the European and international level. First of all, the UNHCR Representative for Northern Europe, Henrik Nordentoft, stated that moving asylum procedures to a third country is irresponsible and, above all, not sustainable; this also in light of the news that Denmark has decided to ask the Rwandan government to accept part of its refugees. In the Memorandum of Understanding on Cooperation in Asylum and Migration between Rwanda and Denmark, the two countries condemn the current asylum system as an ‘unjust and immoral’ institution that encourages ‘children, women and men to undertake dangerous journeys along the migration routes, while human traffickers make fortunes’.

It was this line, along with the desire to move asylum procedures out of the EU, that triggered suspicions that Denmark had asked Rwanda to accept its asylum seekers. Even within the EU, Adalbert Jahnz, immigration spokesman for the executive body of the Union, expressed concern about a choice that risks undermining the foundations of the international refugee protection system.

In an increasingly divided context and with the discussion on the new migration pact proposed by the EU, the chances of finding a shared agreement are very slim, as only Ireland, Lithuania, and Luxembourg have said they are ready to accept migrants.

Once again, the European Union is divided on the immigration issue.