Denmark, a small rich country of 5.8 million inhabitants, famous for its records in the “World Happiness Report”, the world ranking of happiness, for its budgetary health, its full employment and its welfare state, applies the one of the toughest immigration policies in Europe. In twenty years, the laws on foreigners have been modified more than one hundred and thirty times. Governments follow one another, but whether right or left, the country closes a little more each time.
Since 2019, the Social Democrats have led the ruling coalition and they have gone even further than the Conservatives and Liberals. Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen says she wants “zero asylum applications” and offered kilometers of barbed wire to Lithuania to protect its Belarusian border. Interview with the geographer Nicolas Escach, director of the Transitions Campus of Sciences Po Rennes in Caen and author of the essay “Les Danois” (Ateliers Henry Dougier, 2017).
What do you think are the deep roots that explain Denmark’s such closure to immigration?
Nicolas escach There is what in Denmark might be called welfare chauvinism. Attachment to the welfare state, a system based on solidarity [dont l’apogée se situe entre 1945 et les années 1970 et qui fournit des prestations sociales et des services publics très développés, NDLR], is very strong. It's almost a national pride. The principle, accepted by everyone and that few
Source : Nouvelobs
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