The Danish government has reported a “historically” low number of approved asylum applications for the previous year. In 2024, the country granted asylum to 864 individuals, with 309 originating from Syria, 130 from Eritrea, and another 130 from Afghanistan.
According to Immigration Minister Kaare Dybvad Bek, the only instance in the past four decades where the annual total was lower occurred in 2020, during the COVID-19 lockdowns. The minister attributed this decline to the “strict asylum policy” implemented by Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen.
In an interview with TV 2, he emphasized that the number of asylum seekers should not exceed what “society can handle.” Frederiksen has expressed her intention to reduce asylum applications in Denmark to “zero,” a commitment she made after her victory on an anti-immigration platform in 2019.
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The leader of the centre-left Social Democratic Party recently cautioned Europe’s left-wing factions that they must adopt a firmer stance on immigration to counter the rise of right-wing parties across the continent.
Over the past decade, Denmark has enacted increasingly stringent immigration policies. In 2021, the country implemented a law permitting the relocation of immigrants to asylum centers in partner nations, a move that faced condemnation from the European Commission at the time.
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