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The Danish government is tightening its immigration policy even more: in ten years at the latest, people of “non-Western origin” living in certain areas and neighborhoods should not be more than 30 percent. Deutsche Welle reports on the ARD report.
Throughout 2020, only 1,500 asylum applications were submitted in Denmark. For comparison: in 2015, marked by the refugee crisis, their number exceeded 20,000. Since then, however, the country has steadily tightened its immigration policy.
The first steps in this direction were taken by then-Prime Minister Rasmussen and his Liberal-Conservative government. When in 2018 the so-called A Law Against Parallel Societies, Rasmussen said that the goal was to “disappear all ghettos.”
“Denmark without parallel societies”
“The government presents its strategy for a future Denmark in which there will be no more parallel societies by 2030,” Rasmussen said at the time, explaining what he meant by “parallel societies”:
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“Neighborhoods where too many people live on social benefits and too few people have jobs and some vocational education. Neighborhoods with more criminal elements and where women are considered inferior to men and children have distorted perceptions of the world and people. Such thing shouldn’t exist in Denmark. ”
Today, there are still at least 15 districts in the country with more than 1,000 inhabitants, which can be called ghettos. There, the unemployment rate exceeds 40%, crime is well above the national average, and education and income are almost twice as low as in surrounding areas. The government has identified at least 25 more areas as “in danger.”
Apartment building in a troubled neighborhood in Copenhagen.
Meanwhile, the government of Denmark has changed. Starting in the summer of 2019, the Social Democrats took power, led by Prime Minister Frederiksen. As promised in their electoral campaign, they continued the firm course of their predecessors towards foreigners. And now they are tweaking it even more.
The parallel companies law will be reviewed, Interior Minister Kaare Dibwad Beck announced. The residential neighborhoods will no longer be called “ghettos”, and within ten years at the most, no more than 30% of people “of non-Western origin” should live there, instead of the current 50%.
This process will also be guided by the rental of social housing, explained the Minister of the Interior, Kaare Dibwad Beck:
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“We want to introduce flexible rules for social housing so that applicants who have a job or study a profession have an advantage over people without work. Municipalities will no longer have the right to rent homes to convicted persons or citizens of a non-EU country. In this way, we will be able to achieve a better mix of people of foreign origin among locals. ”
Vros is exactly how exactly this best “mix” of local and foreign people will be achieved. Bent Madsen understands social housing construction in Denmark – he is a leading expert in this field. In his opinion, the government’s plans are just compressed air. “This is a purely theoretical goal. To achieve it, you will have to move thousands of people from ‘risky’ areas to completely different places.”
More plans
However, the ruling Social Democrats cling to their goal. Their current policy towards foreigners is bringing them success, and some are even already working on new plans. Recently, the Minister of Integration, Matthias Tesfayer, formulated the goal of “no more asylum seekers”. Prime Minister Frederiksen corrected it, but did it too slowly: “We cannot promise that there will be no more asylum seekers, but we can formulate a vision for the future: create a new asylum system and do everything possible to enter.”
