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Scandinavia has a ‘migrant-friendly’ reputation. But is that changing?
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The British Home Office’s proposal to create offshore asylum processing centres is not quite original. It takes the lead from Denmark, which last month became the first European country to pass legislation aimed at relocating migrants far away from its shores. Applicants could theoretically be granted asylum on behalf of Denmark in the country they have been sent to, thereby defeating the purpose of applying in the first place.

Though negotiations are reportedly ongoing with several potential partner countries, there has been speculation that Rwanda could be the location of an external processing site. Rwanda, unfortunately, has a rather dubious human rights record even though it has sheltered hundreds of thousands of refugees, mostly from neighbouring Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Denmark's immigration laws have long been controversial. As part of the Edinburgh Agreement, signed in 1993, the country opted out of several EU cooperations, including asylum policies. And earlier this year it started revoking residence status for Syrian refugees – the first European country to do so – on the grounds that some parts of the war-torn country were safe enough to return to.

These latest controversial measures, which have made headlines across Scandinavian countries, were drawn up by a minority left-wing coalition headed by the Social Democratic party.

In Norway, another bastion of the Nordic welfare model, the first reaction to Denmark’s move came from Jan Egeland, a former prominent politician within Norway’s Labour Party. Egeland, who since 2013 has headed the Norwegian Refugee Council, said Denmark was defying the principles of solidarity and international law. From now on, he told Norwegian daily Aftenposten, he would cite Denmark as a “horror example”. The initiative ran counter to “everything we should stand for as European civilization”, Egeland added, claiming Denmark was leading a “heinous European race to the bottom”.

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