Norway will no longer grant automatic asylum to refugees from six “safe” regions
Norway has announced that Ukrainians who come from six regions that it has classified as “safe,” mainly in the west of the country, will no longer be granted automatic asylum. The NATO member has welcomed 85,000 Ukrainians over the past two and a half years, according to the government in Oslo.
The number of arrivals has decreased by 40% over the past twelve months, which Norway credited to a series of cutbacks to benefits and accommodations, but has risen again in recent weeks.
“Immigration to Norway must be controlled and sustainable, and not disproportionately greater than in our peer countries,” Minister of Justice and Public Security Emilie Mehl said on Friday. “In [the] future, asylum seekers from Ukraine will therefore be treated on a more equal footing to other asylum seekers.”
In practice, Mehl explained, this means that Ukrainians will not automatically be granted refugee status, but will undergo “a specific and individual assessment,” and those from regions the Norwegian Directorate of Immigration (UDI) has assessed as safe will be denied “if no individual need for protection exists.”
“In parts of the country the fighting is very brutal, but other parts are far less affected by the war,” said Mehl. “People who come from the areas that UDI considers safe will therefore be treated in the same way as asylum seekers from other countries.”
The UDI currently considers six regions as safe: Lviv, Volyn, Transcarpathia, Ivano-Frankovsk, Tarnopol and Rovno, all located in the western part of the country.
While about 10% of the Ukrainians who arrived in Norway so far this year are from these six regions, the new rule will not apply retroactively, said Labor and Social Inclusion Minister Tonje Brenna.
However, Norway is introducing changes to the status of all refugees, intended to “ensure good integration” and relieve some pressure on its dwindling resources.
“Norwegian municipalities are starting to reach capacity. Housing is in short supply and there is pressure on welfare services,” said Brenna. “Ukrainians who come to Norway must learn Norwegian, find work, and get an education,” she added.
Oslo intends to continue supporting Kiev, but has to secure the support of the Norwegian population, since the Ukraine conflict “is set to continue indefinitely,” the government said.
Millions of Ukrainians fled the conflict and sought refuge in central and western European countries, favoring those with generous welfare benefits. Several of these states have begun cutting back on aid in recent months, some going so far as to threaten repatriation of fighting-age men because Kiev had asked for it.
Last month, Hungary ended housing subsidies for thousands of Ukrainian refugees from western regions, declaring them safe enough to return to.
