Fewer asylum seekers want to go to Denmark
In 2021, Denmark fell to 20th place on the list of EU countries with the most asylum seekers per capita, the country’s lowest place since statistics began to be kept in 2008.
Denmark’s highest position on the list was 5th place in 2014.
Will at the bottom of the list
Minister of Immigration and Integration Affairs Kaare Dybvad Bek says that the figures show that the government has lived up to the election promises to pursue a strict immigration policy.
– It ensures that in the long run we can rectify for decades with a failed immigration policy, he says in a press release.
The five EU countries with the most asylum seekers per capita are in descending order Cyprus, Malta, Greece, Austria and Germany.
In 27th place and at the bottom of the list is Hungary, with Estonia, Slovakia, Latvia and Portugal over.
Sweden is in 11th place, while Norway, which is not a member of the EU, is not on the list.
Bek says to The newspaper Danmark that he wants the country in the years to come will be a less popular destination for asylum seekers and would like to end up at the very bottom of the list.
Criticized by support party
Immigration policy spokesperson Rosa Lund in the support party Enhedslisten believes that the government’s immigration policy is unsympathetic.
– This is a trend that we must not be proud of. We are a rich country with space and money to receive more asylum seekers, she tells the newspaper.
Greece and Italy now have the bill and the responsibility for the world’s asylum seekers, at least in a European context. That can not be the case, Lund continues.
Ninna Nyberg Sørensen, who researches international migration and refugees at the Danish Institute for International Studies, says that the development can partly be linked to the immigration policy the country’s governments have pursued since 2014.
The various austerity measures, as well as negative media coverage, have had an effect, says Sørensen.