strict rules and an unstable image

• Rolien Creton

  Scandinavian writer

The Dutch Minister for Asylum and Migration Faber (PVV) is visiting Denmark. She wants to learn more about the asylum policy, which is known to be one of the toughest in Europe. Therefore, the country receives very few asylum applications.

Migration expert Thomas Gammeltoft Hansen from the University of Copenhagen has noticed the interest from many European countries in the past year. The main question: how is it possible that so few refugees apply for asylum in Denmark?

He finds it difficult to give a single explanation. “In practice, it is a collection of more than a hundred tensions over the past ten years, which together have had a reinforcing effect.” Many of these tensions are “indirect”.

Hansen: “We don’t stop refugees at the border and they have just as much right to asylum as in other countries.” But the rules make Denmark unattractive for refugees: less of rights to social services, a shorter residence permit and strict conditions for obtaining a permanent residence permit.

Hansen: “It should send the signal: choose a country other than Denmark.” Denmark has more freedom of movement than other countries in the European Union due to an exception, known as an opt-out, from the European asylum and migration policy.

Minister Faber has also asked the European Commission for such a withdrawal to the Netherlands, but this will not happen in the short term at least because the European Union contract must be changed for this.

In addition, the negative image of Denmark has its place. Consistently pursuing a strict asylum policy for years, the country has been described as inhospitable. Hansen: “It’s a Danish trademark: being strict with asylum seekers. And research shows that the link between strict rules and this negative image has led to a decrease in the number of asylum seekers coming to Denmark.”

He talks about “negative country branding”. “For example, the Ministry of Migration had a counter on the website for years to indicate how many tensions were implemented in the asylum policy. And notices were placed in countries from which refugees come, explaining how strict the rules are.”

The frequent media attention from abroad also helped to strengthen this image: a small, fairy-tale country of the writer of fairy tales Hans Christian Andersen that repels foreigners.

After the refugee crisis in 2015, in which Denmark also saw an increase in the number of asylum seekers, the policy became stricter again. Refugees applying for asylum as a result of war are considered a separate group who must reapply for a temporary residence permit every year or every other year.

In 2019, the Social Democratic government announced a change of course: it had to be clear from the beginning that refugees are always for a short time in Denmark. If the situation in the country of origin is not immediately dangerous, the residence permit can be withdrawn. For example, the government considers the Syrian capital Damascus and the surrounding area to be a safe place.

After eight years in Denmark, refugees can try to apply for permanent residence. They must then meet a long list of requirements.

The Syrian Ajek family from Damascus knows how difficult that is. His father fled to Denmark in 2014, and his wife and three children arrived more than a year later. In the following years, the rules for family reunification were tightened.

The family is fully integrated: the parents work full-time in healthcare, the older daughters are working on their master’s degree in real estate design and software engineering. But after ten years, they are still alive with the possibility of being placed in a transfer center. Only the youngest son, who was a child when he arrived in Denmark, has permanent residency.

More and more European countries want to copy the Danish model, which raises the question of whether the strict policy still has an effect on the number of asylum seekers. “Denmark has benefited from being the only one,” Hansen said. But the playing field is changing fast.

Hansen talks about one “zero sum game”where countries compete with each other to be the toughest and an advantage for one means an equal disadvantage for the other. According to the migration expert, this growing tension could even have an undesirable effect, by making it more unpredictable where refugees travel to and enter for asylum.

In addition, its image as an undesirable country has undesirable side effects. For example, attracting skilled workers, which the whole of Europe is crying out for, has been extremely difficult in Denmark. “Work migrants who come to Denmark leave on average a year earlier than in other countries,” said Hansen.

“You don’t need to dream about the future,” says 27-year-old Ola Ajek. “Every time you think: ‘We’re almost there’, the rules are tightened again.” For her and her younger sister Lojain (a master’s student in software engineering), permission permanent residence is still far away.

Lojain: “I would prefer that we could stay in Denmark as a family. But at the same time, I would also like to start over somewhere else. It is difficult for me to live with the idea that I could be placed in an exit center tomorrow.”