Denmark passes law to relocate asylum seekers
outside Europe
UN opposed bill for fear it would erode refugees’
rights and encourage other EU states to follow suit
Reuters in
Copenhagen
Thu 3 Jun
2021 12.38 BST
Denmark has
passed a law enabling it to process asylum seekers outside Europe, drawing
anger from human rights advocates, the UN and European Commission.
Politicians
in the wealthy Scandinavian nation, which has gained notoriety for its hardline
immigration policies over the last decade, passed the law with 70 votes in
favour and 24 against.
The
legislation will complicate the EU’s efforts to overhaul Europe’s fragmented
migration and asylum rules, an extremely divisive subject within the bloc.
The
European Commission (the EU’s executive) questioned the law’s compatibility
with Denmark’s international obligations.
“External processing
of asylum claims raises fundamental questions about both the access to asylum
procedures and effective access to protection,” said Adalbert Jahnz, a
commission spokesperson. “It is not possible under existing EU rules or
proposals under the new pact for migration and asylum.”
Denmark
maintains one of Europe’s harshest stances on immigration and aims to accept
refugees only under the UN’s quota system.
The new law
will allow Denmark to move refugees from Danish soil to asylum centres in a
partner country for case reviews and possibly their protection in that country.
“If you
apply for asylum in Denmark you know that you will be sent back to a country
outside Europe, and therefore we hope that people will stop seeking asylum in
Denmark,” Rasmus Stoklund, the government party’s immigration speaker, told the
broadcaster DR on Thursday.
Denmark has
yet to reach an agreement with a partner country, but Stoklund said there were
negotiations with several candidate countries.
In April,
Denmark’s immigration minister, Mattias Tesfaye, whose father was an Ethiopian
immigrant, appeared in Rwanda on an unannounced visit to the central African
nation, which led to the signing of diplomatic agreements on asylum and
political matters.
Tesfaye
later said it was too early to name any specific partner countries, but
Denmark, along with Austria, has previously pledged support for a UN-operated
refugee camp in Rwanda, set up to receive refugees stuck in Libya.
EU
countries discussed setting up such external centres in 2016-18 after a sharp
rise in Mediterranean arrivals overwhelmed the bloc. Legal, humanitarian,
political, safety and financial concerns eclipsed the proposals back then.
Critics
worry that moving the asylum process to countries with fewer resources will
undermine the safety and welfare of refugees and compromise their human rights.
“The idea
to externalise the responsibility of processing asylum seekers’ asylum claims
is both irresponsible and lacking in solidarity,” said Charlotte Slente, the
general secretary of the Danish Refugee Council, an NGO.
The United
Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) warned last month that Denmark’s
move could trigger a “race to the bottom” if other countries followed suit.
Gillian
Triggs, a UNHCR assistant high commissioner, said: “Such practices undermine
the rights of those seeking safety and protection, demonise and punish them,
and may put their lives at risk.”
The number
of refugees seeking asylum in Denmark has dropped steadily to just over 1,500
applicants last year from a peak of more than 21,000 in 2015, when more than a
million refugees mostly from the Middle East and Africa made it to EU shores.
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