Michael de Laine

By Michael de Laine, Copenhagen, 13 November 2008

Preliminary reports that have sharply criticised Danish authorities and ministers for failing to advise Danish citizens correctly about their possibilities for bringing a foreign spouse into Denmark will not lead to in the country’s immigration and integration policies, politicians and observers say. Nor will the responsible minister be fired.

On Tuesday, the Parliamentary Commissioner for Civil and Military Administration in Denmark (the ombudsman) said the Danish authorities - the Danish Immigration Service and the Ministry of Refugee, Immigration and Integration Affairs - have not been good enough at telling citizens about the possibilities for bringing a spouse born outside the EU to Denmark following recent EU court rulings.

The reports also criticised the current minister, Birthe Rønn Hornbech, for failing to give correct counselling to some people who had asked the authorities for information. This and misleading information on the websites of the ministry and the service were “in breach of good administrative practice and is thus very regrettable,” the ombudsman, Hans Gammeltoft-Hansen, said.

The ombudsman’s reports and comments will not have consequences for Birthe Rønn Hornbech, Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen told a news conference.

“When you ask whether this will have any consequences, you mean, of course, will it have consequences for the minister,” Fogh Rasmussen said. “The answer is short and clear: ‘No’.”

Asked if the minister had broken the law, Fogh Rasmussen said: “No.”

Both Pia Kjærsgaard, the leader of the Danish People’s Party (DF), and Peter Mogensen, political editor and columnist at a leading daily newspaper, Politiken, told the Copenhagen Voice that the criticism of the authorities and minister will not result in changes to the country’s immigration and integration policies.

What the authorities and minister had done was not very serious, Pia Kjærsgaard said. “No, it’s not very serious. There have been some things that were not OK, but the minister said I will do as the ombudsman said.”

A need to fill jobs that cannot be filled by the current 45,000 jobless people implies an influx of workers from abroad.

Kjærsgaard could see a need for this, but with provisos. “Bringing in some people from abroad where we have no people from Denmark to do the work in Denmark is necessary,” she said. But they must be educated, positive to Denmark, want to work and maybe stay here and maybe go back when there’s no work, the DF party leader said.

“And it doesn’t matter where they come from, their skin colour or religion…?”

“Not skin colour - I’m very serious about that, not their colour,” Kjærsgaard underlined. “But we have had many problems with people from the Middle East and I think it is very important that they agree with the Danish culture and religion.”

“That’s something you will put pressure on?”

“Yes.”

Mogensen said there is a majority supporting the minister and that in reality she will not be fired.

“We are absolutely at square one,” he said. “Although the report was critical, it wasn’t critical enough. And it may take even more to get her out…”

An influx of workers from abroad to fill jobs in Denmark is not really a new situation for the right-wing parties, he said.

“That issue is very strange in a sense,” Mogensen said. “On the one hand they’re winning elections on keeping people out, but on the other hand they recognise there is a problem, that we need more hands in Denmark. But they risk losing the next election if you get a lot of people from outside the European Union, so if you get a lot Poles in, then that’s fine. Anything else is a big problem. That’s the hard facts of Danish politics: they’d rather get the election than fix the possible unemployment situation”

“Pia Kjærsgaard said that if the people coming had the right education, the right attitude and accept Danish religious standards, then that would be all right. Is that a scenario you can see being valid for the next 10 years?”

“No, that’s not realistic,” Mogensen said. “She will not support any type of immigration unless its 300 or 500 engineers from Switzerland. She will not accept a large amount of Indians or people from the Philippines or wherever.”

But the problem is with the low-income groups, he stressed, where people with a high education are not relevant.

“If the welfare loss over the next five years is very, very large because of the lack of hands, so you can’t get you old parents cared for, that is something evident people can relate to,” Mogensen said. “Then the policies will change, but it would need a very large change, perhaps an economic meltdown, to show it.”

Pia Kjærsgaard and Peter Mogensen spoke with the Copenhagen Voice after a debate evening at PH Café in Copenhagen hosted by AOF-Metropol.

For the full interviews in English and excerpts from the Danish-language debate evening, which also included Mette Frederiksen of the Social Democrats, go to http://www.cphvoice.com/page3/page16/page16.html.