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IMMIGRATION

Norway’s PM and finance minister in potential clash over EU asylum

Prime Minister Erna Solberg has said she would be open to Norway relieving pressure on EU countries by taking in more refugees.

Published: 5 July 2018 17:39 CEST
Norway’s PM and finance minister in potential clash over EU asylum
Siv Jensen (L) and Erna Solberg. File photo: Lise Åserud / NTB scanpix

The PM’s view is not shared by Finance Minister Siv Jensen, who is also leader of the anti-immigration Progress Party.

Just under a week ago, Solberg said that Norway could help relieve the burden on countries that have taken in a large number of refugees and migrants.

“If it is such that we reach agreement that the pressure of refugees coming to other countries in Europe is reduced because other countries take more, then we must agree on a distribution mechanism. I think that is fair and we also did that when we had redistribution in 2015,” she told NRK.

Following an EU summit attended by heads of state in Brussels last week, an agreement was made enabling countries that have taken in fewer refugees to relieve those that have taken in more.

But Finance Minister Jensen wrote on Facebook that she was not in support of the potential redistribution.

“In the last few days, many have asked whether Norway should voluntarily take in more migrants that come to EU countries.

“The Progress Party is against that. Norway has already contributed significantly. What we need is a joint asylum centre in Africa to keep the situation under control,” the minister wrote.

Meanwhile, Progress MP Per-Willy Amundsen suggested that his party should quit the coalition government should Solberg push to take in more refugees.

“I am sending a clear signal on behalf of the Progress Party parliamentary group that there is a limit to what Progress will accept. We are beginning to quickly approach that limit,” Amundsen told NRK.

Solberg’s Conservative party colleague told NRK that he was unsurprised by the response from the Progress Party, saying that an anti-immigration stance was the “primary politics” of the populist parliamentary group.

“A potential migration agreement with the EU still lies some way ahead. But it is clear that it is in Norway’s interest that Europe and the EU come to agreement on the issue (of migration). That would relieve pressure on the Norwegian asylum system,” he added.

READ ALSO: Norway records lowest asylum seeker numbers since 1995

CRIME

Germany mulls expulsions to Afghanistan after knife attack

Germany said Tuesday it was considering allowing deportations to Afghanistan, after an asylum seeker from the country injured five and killed a police officer in a knife attack.

Published: 4 June 2024 14:50 CEST
Germany mulls expulsions to Afghanistan after knife attack

Officials had been carrying out an “intensive review for several months… to allow the deportation of serious criminals and dangerous individuals to Afghanistan”, Interior Minister Nancy Faeser told journalists.

“It is clear to me that people who pose a potential threat to Germany’s security must be deported quickly,” Faeser said.

“That is why we are doing everything possible to find ways to deport criminals and dangerous people to both Syria and Afghanistan,” she said.

Deportations to Afghanistan from Germany have been completely stopped since the Taliban retook power in 2021.

But a debate over resuming expulsions has resurged after a 25-year-old Afghan was accused of attacking people with a knife at an anti-Islam rally in the western city of Mannheim on Friday.

A police officer, 29, died on Sunday after being repeatedly stabbed as he tried to intervene in the attack.

Five people taking part in a rally organised by Pax Europa, a campaign group against radical Islam, were also wounded.

Friday’s brutal attack has inflamed a public debate over immigration in the run up to European elections and prompted calls to expand efforts to expel criminals.

READ ALSO: Tensions high in Mannheim after knife attack claims life of policeman

The suspect, named in the media as Sulaiman Ataee, came to Germany as a refugee in March 2013, according to reports.

Ataee, who arrived in the country with his brother at the age of only 14, was initially refused asylum but was not deported because of his age, according to German daily Bild.

Ataee subsequently went to school in Germany, and married a German woman of Turkish origin in 2019, with whom he has two children, according to the Spiegel weekly.

Per the reports, Ataee was not seen by authorities as a risk and did not appear to neighbours at his home in Heppenheim as an extremist.

Anti-terrorism prosecutors on Monday took over the investigation into the incident, as they looked to establish a motive.

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