In a letter sent to the Norwegian immigration minister, EU’s immigration commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos stated how he fully supported the initiative of bringing 40 000 additional quota “refugees” from non-warring countries in Africa. He urged the Norwegian minister to be “as ambitious as possible” in receiving them.
But in an e-mail to ABC Nyheter, Listhaug responded that it was not an option for Norway to accept more quota refugees.
“It is not possible to receive more refugees now. Norway is among the countries that have received most quota refugees in relation to population,” Listhaug noted
Avramopoulos had to concede that the majority of Africans who come to Europe by crossing the central Mediterranean are not in need of protection. The largest groups are migrants from countries such as Nigeria, Guinea and Bangladesh.
“But we have a legal and moral duty to offer protection to those who really need it,” the EU Commissioner wrote.
However, according to Listhaug, Norway is full.
Last week’s general election in the country was won by Conservatives, together with the anti-immigration Progress party coalition partners and two smaller centre-right parliamentary allies.
Sylvi Listhaug, a member of the Progress Party, had caused a furor just before the election by saying that some immigrant ghettos in Sweden had become “no-go zones”.
She had warned for months that Norway should not copy its neighbour and allow “Swedish conditions” to develop, alluding to integration problems in the suburbs of three large cities, Stockholm, Gothenburg and Malmo.
Listhaug poured more fuel on the immigration fire by travelling to Stockholm less than two weeks before Norway’s parliamentary elections — to visit one of the most notorious suburbs, Rinkeby, in what she described as a “learning trip”.
Sweden’s own immigration minister cancelled a meeting with Listhaug after her Norwegian counterpart alleged there were 60 such “no-go zones” in Sweden.
“It is complete nonsense,” Helene Fritzon, Sweden’s immigration minister responded. Fritzon has said she would only meet Norwegian ministers after the elections in Norway “because I don’t want to be part of the campaign”.
Carl Bildt, a former Swedish prime minister, had also lashed out at Listhaug saying she had not made the visit to learn anything but rather to boost her election campaign. “Sweden is a well-functioning society and we are making progress in our immigration policy. There are areas where there are problems, and that is what you always see in a transitional period,” Bildt said.
But Listhaug is not alone in her concerns about open borders. “The Swedes are naive. They just opened the doors and thought everything would be OK,” a senior Danish politician told the British daily, the Financial Times last year.
No Conservative-led government has secured a second term since 1985. Prime Minister Erna Solberg, whose government steered her country through Europe’s 2015 migrant crisis and the 2014 collapse in crude oil prices, had pledged further tax cuts, while the opposition had vowed to raise taxes to reduce inequality.