Fear that success of hardline asylum policy in Denmark may cause ‘race to the bottom’ across Europe
. There, the main centre-left party has successfully prevented a surge from the extreme right in recent years by adopting a similarly hard line on asylum policy.
If the aim of the hardline approach was to discourage people from seeking international protection in Denmark, it is working. In the first four months of this year just 747 people claimed asylum, according to figures from the ministry of immigration. The highest number of arrivals in recent years was in 2022 when about 4,600 people sought asylum in Denmark. In comparison, 13,651 people sought asylum in Ireland during the same year, with 6,778 arrivals in the first four months of this year.
The Danish People’s Party has been around since the mid-1990s and from 2001 onwards held more than 20 of the 179 seats in the national parliament. It made significant gains in the 2015 parliamentary elections and won 37 seats, but has since fallen from that high point, returning 16 seats in the 2019 and just five two years ago.
Despite passing a law in 2021 aiming to send asylum seekers to African countries such as Rwanda to have their claims processed, the Danish government was unable to bring the plan to fruition. It is now working with other EU countries, such as Italy, Austria, Poland and the Netherlands, to push for more leeway from Brussels to pursue such deals.
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