Only in Denmark

URL: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-13390432

The EU has voiced concerns over Denmark’s plans to reintroduce controls on internal borders, abolished under the Schengen Agreement.

European Commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso questioned whether the measures would be compatible with the principle of free movement.

Denmark has denied its plan will violate EU treaties.

Officials say they will maintain passport-free travel using customs patrols to fight crime.

EU interior ministers said on Thursday that the Schengen rules needed to be clarified to deter countries from unilaterally reimposing border checks.

They were reviewing the 25-nation agreement because of tensions over this year’s influx of migrants from North Africa.

More than 25,000 Africans, most of them Tunisians, have arrived by boat in Italy since unrest began in the Arab world this year.

‘Real concerns’

On Wednesday, Denmark announced that it would reinstate control booths on its borders with Germany and Sweden within weeks.

In a letter to Danish Prime Minister Lars Lekke Rasmussen on Friday, Mr Barroso said an initial legal assessment of the move raised “important doubts about whether the proposed measures, if implemented in the ‘intensive and permanent’ way that has been announced, would be in line with Denmark’s obligations under European and international law”.

He referred in particular to the obligation to respect “free movement of goods, persons, services and capital, and the provisions of the Schengen Borders Code”.

Cecilia Malmstrom, EU Commissioner for Home Affairs, said later that the commission had “real concerns” over the prospect of “a permanent and visible customs control at all Danish borders”.

The commission, she said, would ask Denmark for information about the legal basis for its envisaged checks.

“I call on the Danish government to refrain from taking unilateral steps and to make sure that any measures taken are in line with the relevant law,” she said.

“The commission stands ready to continue the dialogue with Denmark. But it will, if needed, use the tools at its disposal to guarantee the respect of EU law.”

Schengen allows for the temporary reimposition of border controls in special cases to ensure public order but France and Italy say a migrant surge is also grounds for reintroducing such checks.

The European Commission says such measures should be “an absolute last resort”.

Modifications to Schengen could be approved at a European summit next month.

URL: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-12366676

Critics of Denmark’s tightening rules on immigration and integration say the country is violating European norms, including human rights legislation. How much has Denmark’s approach to these issues been transformed under pressure from a right-wing populist party?

It looks, at first, like a familiar Scandinavian scene.

Outside the Danish parliament in Copenhagen, an international crowd mixing Danish citizens, immigrants from all kinds of backgrounds, is enjoying music and theatre.

“Afro-Danes” are here, reflecting Denmark’s long interest in African developments and its past offers of asylum to those fleeing conflicts in Africa and elsewhere.

The crowd laughs as a couple stage a mock marriage. An official asks whether they are marrying “purely for immigration purposes” and “plan to live in a ghetto”.

Behind the humour, there is serious anxiety. Denmark has recently tightened its immigration laws again, with a points system designed to make it more difficult for “family reunion” to bring foreigners into the country through marriage.

And the language of “ghettoes”, warnings of a threat to “Danish values”, are now heard routinely in political and popular debate.

Points system

There are new stricter requirements for would-be immigrants, and for those already in Denmark, who wish to marry a Dane. This is in addition to the already high minimum age of 24 for both the Danish and the foreign would-be spouse, proof of financial independence and an “active commitment to Danish society”.

The new points system had Thomas Miller, a Dane, and his Mexican wife Carolina so worried they might now have to leave Denmark, that they went to lobby MPs in parliament.

“We are both graduates, we have been living in Denmark for eight years, working and paying our taxes, with no debts to the public system. Despite this, she would get no points,” says Thomas.

“It’s as if they don’t want Danes to marry foreigners anymore. It’s very worrying,” Carolina adds.

“I’m speechless, it’s so unjust,” says Thomas. “It’s all about the stick, there’s no carrot.”

Human rights breaches

European and international bodies have pointed out that some of these laws and regulations could be in breach of human rights legislation.

Professor Margot Horspool, a specialist in European law at the British Institute of International and Comparative Law, says that the restrictions on marrying foreigners “almost certainly breach European Union law in respect of discrimination as to ethnic origin, and possibly as to age”.

She also believes the rules may violate EU legal protection of “the right to family life”.

Another tightening of the rules prohibits state-funded hostels for the homeless from accepting foreigners who do not have permanent residency status. Reports say that this has led to people freezing to death in the sub-zero winter temperatures.

This, suggests Professor Horspool, breaks EU legal commitments not to subject individuals to inhuman or degrading treatment, laws that amount to an “obligation on the member state to ensure that humans are not left out in the street to freeze or indeed to starve.”

The Danish government denies that its laws breach human rights, and says the 24-year age restriction is to prevent forced marriages.

Naser Khader, himself of Palestinian and Syrian descent, is now the immigration spokesman for the Conservatives, part of the governing coalition which depends on the votes of the DPP, the anti-immigration Danish People’s Party.

He defends the toughened immigration policies: “We have a lot of people with an immigrant background who married cousins from their parents’ villages, who came to Denmark with no language skills, education or work experience and became a great cost to Danish society.”

“Denmark should welcome anybody who wants to contribute to this society, but we don’t want people who don’t want to contribute,” he adds.

Populism

All this is part, say critics, of a decade-long transformation in Denmark’s approach to immigration and integration, under pressure from the populist Danish People’s party, the DPP.

The DPP is led by Pia Kjaersgaard, a former social worker in an old people’s home. “We founded the party because of too many immigrants,” she says.

She likes to present a homely, common sense image. “I am very powerful,” she told me, “but I am also just a housewife and mother”.

Denmark’s Muslim population are the party’s particular focus. There are many Muslims, its says, who are unwilling to integrate and hostile to “Danish values” such as free speech.

The “cartoons crisis” in 2005 boosted DPP support, when a Danish newspaper published cartoons satirising the Prophet Mohammed. Many Muslims in Denmark and abroad objected, some violently.

The party has yet to win more than around 15% of the vote in elections. But what has given it such influence is Denmark’s coalition politics. For a decade ruling parties have depended on DPP MPs to get legislation through.

In return, the DPP has secured other parties’ agreement to ever stricter rules on immigration and integration.

This has “made everyone aware of [the DPP's] power,” the late Toger Seidenfaden, Denmark’s top political commentator, told me shortly before his death last month. The DPP has become “highly visible”, and is seen as the “winner of the game”, he said.

Mainstream parties originally tried to ignore the DPP or dismiss it as “not house-trained”, unworthy of political attention.

But more recently several parties have abandoned that stance, accepting the DPP as permanent part of the political and parliamentary scene.

In Denmark, as in many other European countries, new populist parties and movements are moving from the margins and shaping the way immigration and integration is debated.

TO MARRY A FOREIGNER

• Both the Danish and the foreign partner need to be at least 24 years old
• The Danish partner needs to post a bond of £7,200 collateral ($11,600)
• The foreign partner has to pass a language and knowledge test
• Both need to demonstrate a combined attachment to Denmark greater than to any other country