A “zero refugee” policy has seen Denmark’s asylum admissions drop to a record low. Last year, just 860 requests were granted the country’s lowest figure since 2020, when COVID-19 paused new arrivals.
In comparison, Home Office figures show the UK granted 67,978 asylum claims in the year to June 2024, triple the previous year’s 21,436.
Despite having a population 10 times that of Denmark, the European country only received 2,300 asylum applications last year.
Its strict immigration approach follows prime minister Mette Frederikson’s coming into power in 2019, pursuing a “zero refugee” policy.
The leader of the centre-left Social Democrats party has ramped up Denmark’s long-serving immigration approach, which has been influenced by Right-wing parties for two decades.
The immigration minister, Kaare Dybvad Bek, labelled the figure as “historic”, saying: “Last year, authorities granted the smallest number of residency permits to asylum seekers that we have seen in recent years.”
Denmark’s record figures come before the European Union’s plans to implement their new asylum seeker rules, which they aim to implement by 2026.
However, the European country has negotiated an agreement with the bloc to avoid the EU’s standard asylum policy, hoping to continue its various initiatives to discourage migrants from going to Denmark.
Ms Frederikson’s hardline approach to cracking down on immigration has proved popular with residents, especially Left-wing and working-class voters. Speaking to the Financial Times last year, she said: “An unsafe society is always a bigger challenge for people without a lot of opportunities. If you have the money, you will always be able to defend yourself.”
In 2024, Mr Dybvad Bek explained how there was a “broad consensus” in Denmark to reduce migration numbers, adding there are only “a few parties on the far-Right and the far-Left” who disagree.
“I would say 80 to 85 per cent agree that on the one hand we cannot accept an endless number of refugees, and on the other, we are of course part of international conventions – human rights, refugees’ rights – and we strictly have to respect these as well,” he said.
In 2018, Denmark introduced a new law to reduce the number of “non-Western” residents in certain areas to less than 30% by 2030.
In 2021, this was updated to give towns and cities the right to “prevention areas” where locals can refuse to rent to people who are not from Denmark, the EU or EEA or Switzerland.