Europe is losing patience: Denmark becomes the first country to restrict Ukrainian refugees
After years of lenient policy, Denmark is changing course: 14 regions in Ukraine will be considered relatively safe, thousands of benefit recipients will be required to work, and men subject to conscription are also in the crosshairs.
The Danish government plans to significantly tighten the conditions for receiving new refugees from Ukraine and to stop automatically granting temporary status to citizens arriving from 14 regions in the center and west of the country, which it defines as having been less affected by the war. The capital, Kyiv, is not included in the list, although the Kyiv region surrounding it is included.
According to the Danish Ministry of Immigration and Integration, the areas assessed as "relatively safe" are Cherkasy, Chernivtsi, Ivano-Frankivsk, Khmelnytskyi, Kirovohrad, Kyiv region, Lviv, Poltava, Rivne, Ternopil, Vinnytsia, Volyn, Zakarpattia, and Zhytomyr. Copenhagen has effectively adopted an approach similar to the one already implemented in Norway.
The changes will apply to new applicants and not to Ukrainians who have already received a residence permit under the special law enacted after the Russian invasion in 2022. Minister of Immigration and Integration Morten Bødskov explained that local authorities are struggling to cope with the number of arrivals. According to him:
"Local authorities have taken on a very large responsibility for receiving displaced persons from Ukraine, but some of them are struggling to find housing for the large number of Ukrainians and to integrate them into Danish society."
Today, about 47,600 displaced persons from Ukraine who received status under the special law live in Denmark.
The government is simultaneously seeking to impose a work requirement on Ukrainians receiving benefits. Currently, they are exempt from some of the requirements imposed on other benefit recipients, but according to the plan, about 12,000 Ukrainians may be included in the work requirement. Local authorities will be given a transition period until October 1 to implement the change.
Another change concerns the education system. The government seeks to cancel the exemptions that allow Ukrainian children to receive instruction in English or Ukrainian, as well as to participate in remote learning from the education system in Ukraine. The goal is to gradually transfer them to the regular Danish education framework.
The move joins a separate proposal already promoted by the government, according to which Ukrainian men aged 23 to 60 who are subject to conscription and have not received an exemption from military service will not be able to receive temporary status in Denmark. Bødskov explained that Denmark is not interested in its immigration system being used as a way to evade conscription into the Ukrainian army. This proposal is in the legislative process in the Danish parliament.
