Refugees welcome here! Denmark has announced that it expects an influx of up to 100,000 Ukrainian refugees. That’s an enormous increase for a country whose immigration minister said in January that he was pleased there were only 2,095 applications for asylum in 2021.

Ukrainians in Poland boarding a bus to Denmark. Photo: Paw Lindegaard Nielsen © DR.

Denmark has not taken in more than 4,000 refugees in any year since the migration wave from the war in Syria in 2015, when the country received 21,000 asylum applications. Estimates of the number of arrivals range from 20,000 to 30,000. Minister of the Interior Kaare Dybvad Bek expects that it could exceed 40,000 after Easter vacation.

Emergency residency law

Last month Parliament passed a special law to enable Ukrainians to get residency and work permits quickly. It waives the normal limit on residency of 90 days without a visa or an asylum claim, and the Ukrainians thus need not be part of the asylum system. They will also be exempt from the country’s infamous “jewelry law” from 2016, which allowed authorities to confiscate valuables from refugees but perhaps has never been enforced.

The effort will be expensive. It has cost DKK 2 billion so far. Most of these funds have been taken from the government’s foreign aid budget, a tactic that not all parties are happy with. If up to 100,000 refugees come to Denmark, it will cost DKK 8-10 billion per year (DK). Like the rest of the world’s nations, Denmark has already seen its public budget balloon during the pandemic of the past two years. The logistics of the accommodations will also be difficult; there aren’t enough facilities to house a fraction of the number expected. There are also questions about equal treatment and priorities.

Ethnic favoritism?

One might well wonder why the country is so eager to take in Ukrainians when it has been tightening its asylum and immigration regulations for several years. “A series of clever decisions have been made which have continually ensured better control of immigration,” said Immigration Minister Mattias Tesfaye about the decline in asylum applications.

The Social Democratic administration has been criticized by its European counterparts as well as Danish immigration activists for revoking asylum status for Syrian refugees while the situation in Syria remained unstable. Some critics call the difference in policy racist. Is it owing to the fact that Ukrainians are white and Christian, unlike many refugees and migrants from the Middle East, North Africa, and Afghanistan? At a protest demonstration (DK) held on 2 April before the Ministry of Immigration and Integration, a spokesman for the Syrian Refugees in Denmark demanded that all refugees be treated according to the new residency law for Ukrainians.

European solidarity

Testfaye stated that Denmark’s response is appropriate when “a European country is attacked, a country close to us.” Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen also argued that the situation is different “because Ukraine is our region.… It’s our back yard, if you like.” Pia Olsen Dyhr, the chair of the left-leaning Socialist People’s Party, concurred, asserting mistakenly that “there’s only one country between us and Ukraine, and that’s Poland.” Even the parties that have been most opposed to immigration are ready to welcome Ukrainians, like the others justifying the decision by the concept of nærområde (“nearby area”) and denying that religion plays any role.

The Danish public seems to agree with the view that Ukrainians share European cultural values as exemplified by their interest in joining the EU and NATO and will therefore be easier to integrate. It doesn’t hurt either that they are used to working and that Denmark is experiencing a labor shortage. There have been some difficulties getting refugees from non-Western countries into the labor force.

Inger Støjberg, the former immigration minister who was impeached for abusing her office, disavows the prevailing rationale: “No one dares to say it like it is: It’s because the Ukrainians are more like us and because they are primarily Christians.”

Now where to put them?

Housing the refugees will be the responsibility of the municipalities. The distribution of refugees (DK) among them depends on how many immigrants from non-Western countries the municipalities already have. Those with many such immigrants will get no Ukrainians. The municipalities where refugees have arrived are scrambling to find accommodations. They use public housing, dormitories, facilities that were set up for Covid-19 isolation, and sports complexes.

Copenhagen Municipality, which has by far the largest number of refugees and has a perennial shortage of low-income housing, is considering building a “pavilion-city” that would house 330 refugees (DK) for three years and include a day-care center. Critics warn against isolating the Ukrainians in another “parallel society.”

Private citizens are also encouraged to take refugees into their homes. They are eligible for compensation of up to DKK 500 ($75) per day, but they receive much less than that. Although the funding comes from the state, it must be administered by the individual municipalities, which set the rates and rules. Some of them hesitate to use the funds at all because the program is difficult to manage and control. Some private citizens who share their homes (DK) with refugees are already becoming impatient with the strain and are asking the municipalities for more help.

Children and accidental guest workers

Housing isn’t the only logistical issue. After the first wave, the residence permit application system became overloaded. People could not get appointments at three of the four regional Citizens’ Services offices, and new offices needed to be set up.

There will be great pressure on schools and day-care institutions. Education Minister Pernille Rosenkrantz-Theil is calling for retired teachers and day-care staff (DK) as well as students in relevant programs to assist with the influx. Student associations from the country’s seminaries have expressed a willingness to help. The schools will need to set up special tracks with native-language instruction and recruit Ukrainian teachers and others to staff them.

Filling job vacancies with Ukrainian refugees won’t be a simple matter either. Because of Ukraine’s conscription policy, most of the refugees are women and children. Ukrainian women have been part of the labor force, but it can take time to place them in suitable positions, warns Mads Lundby Hansen from the CEPOS think tank. The benefits for the Danish economy would come over the longer term, he adds, and the Ukrainian ambassador says that Denmark shouldn’t create conditions for Ukrainians to stay here for the rest of their lives. Even if they don’t, perhaps the country should remain prepared for additional surges of refugees in the new global disorder.