Denmark looks to "zero" asylum applications
Prime Minister of Denmark, Mitte Frederiksen.
Danish Prime Minister, Mitte Frederiksen, stressed Friday that her government aims to make asylum applications zero, as part of strengthening its mainly hard stance on immigration.
It is noteworthy that Denmark has the lowest number of asylum seekers since 1998, with 1,547 people submitting asylum applications in 2020.
"We cannot pledge to zero asylum seekers, but we can put this vision in place," Fredrickson said in Parliament.
The low number of asylum applications last year may be partly due to the "Covid-19" epidemic, but it is less than a tenth of the number recorded in 2015, at the height of the asylum crisis in Europe.
By comparison, the number of 21,300 applications in 2015 constituted only about an eighth of the number that was registered in neighboring Sweden.
Denmark, which has 5.8 million people, is making no secret of its desire to discourage migrants from applying for asylum.
"We have to be careful that a large number of people do not enter our country, otherwise there can be no social cohesion," Fredrickson said.
In 2017, the Prime Minister and the leader of the Social Democrats presented a plan to return "non-Western" immigrants to reception centers in the Middle East and North Africa.
In September, Copenhagen appointed an ambassador for immigration to accelerate the establishment of one or more camps for migrants outside the European Union as part of a new European asylum system.
Follow our latest local and sports news, and the latest political and economic developments via Google news