The Economist December 18th 2021 37
EuropeDenmarkNo room at the inn
M
jolnerparken, a housingproject in
Copenhagen’s multiethnic Norrebro
district, is pleasantly landscaped and dot
ted with sports pitches. The only signs of
anything amiss are banners hanging from
white balconies bearing slogans like “I’ll
never move”. By next autumn many of the
1,500 residents may have to. That is be
cause Denmark’s government deems Mjol
nerparken to be a “parallel society”. Too
many of its residents are hardup, or job
less, or poorly educated, or have criminal
records and are of “nonWestern” origin.
To comply with its policy of breaking up
what the government until recently called
“ghettos”, Mjolnerparken’s owner is to sell
two of the four apartment blocks to inves
tors. Other citizens will move in.
This is one of a number of ways in
which Denmark is trying to control where
and how immigrants live. On December 1st
its Social Democratic government enacted
a law to prevent the formation of parallel
societies by obliging local authorities to
give preference in “prevention areas” to
welleducated people with jobs when as
signing housing. It is even keener to deter
migrants from arriving in the first place. In
March it was the first eu country to say it
would send Syrians back to Syria, arguing
that Damascus and its environs are now
safe. Mette Frederiksen, Denmark’s prime
minister, has set a goal of “zero asylum
seekers”. On December 13th a Danish court
sentenced Inger Stoejberg, who was immi
gration minister in an earlier centreright
government, to 60 days in jail for ordering
unlawfully that married asylumseekers
younger than 18 be housed separately from
their spouses. She says the policy’s intent
was to discourage child marriage. Antiim
migrant parties hail her as a martyr.Denmark is hardly the only country to
pull up the drawbridge. Europe suffered
political convulsions after an influx of ref
ugees in 2015; most governments are eager
to avoid a repeat. But in some ways Den
mark stands out. Unlike their counterparts
in Hungary, say, its politicians do not de
nounce immigrants to distract attention
from their own failings. Denmark differs
from neighbouring Sweden, which in 2015
took in more Syrian asylumseekers as a
share of its population than any other
European country except Turkey. Sweden
“cherishes multiculturalism”, says Tina
Gudrun Jensen, an anthropologist at Mal
mo University. “In Denmark multicultural
ism is really a negative word.”
This approach is earning Danes a bad
press. “Denmark leading the race to the
bottom” ran a recent headline. But for
some governments it is a role model. Mat
tias Tesfaye, the immigration and integra
tion minister, said recently that he had just
hosted a delegation from Greece and ex
pected one from Austria. Britain has re
portedly talked to Denmark about cooper
ating to process asylum applications in
some faraway place such as Rwanda. Even
Sweden is becoming more like its southern
neighbour.
The Danish difference has deep roots.
After the Danish crown lost the largely Ger
manspeaking duchies of Schleswig and
Holstein to Prussia in 1864 it drew the les
son that the country must “stick togetherC OPENHAGEN
Why is the world’s second-happiest country so averse to immigration?→Alsointhissection
38 TheLollandexception
40 Bulgarianbrooms
42 Charlemagne: Macron’s tricky present