Denmark: Social Liberals guide immigrants on how to avoid Danish immigration laws

Denmark: Social Liberals guide immigrants on how to avoid Danish immigration laws

See also: Denmark: Immigrants moving to Sweden to marry

The Danish Social Liberal Party is coming out with a guide telling foreigners in Denmark how they can do family reunification according to the EU regulations.

Move to Sweden, do family reunification and then move back to Denmark. That way your partner can get a permanent residence permit much easier than if you just live in Denmark and try to do family reunification via the strict Danish rules.

The invitation to take advantage of EU immigration rules appear in a new guide published by the Social Liberal Party and the Documentation Centre Racism and Discrimination.

Integration spokesperson Marianne Jelved (R) told Information they felt obligated to give good, solid public-education since the ministry doesn't live up to their responsibility for guidance.

When a couple wants to do family reunification, it's not clear from the materials they get that there are significant benefits in doing it as EU citizens, says Marianne Jelved.

Liberal Party's integration spokesperson, Karsten Lauritzen, thinks that when the Social Liberals try to guide immigrants and Danes who want to do family reunification, it's almost 'undemocratic'.

"It's fair enough that the Social Liberals want a different foreign and integration policy, but they should respect the rules that a majority in Parliament has adopted," says the Liberal Party's spokesperson.

He says that anybody who contacts the Ministry of Integration also gets info about family reunification by the EU rules. The guidelines also appear on the Ministry's website.

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A new record was reached last year for people moving to Denmark from Southern Sweden (Skåne). The figures from Statistics Denmark show that fewer people are moving in the opposite direction.

Close to 3,000 people left Sweden for Denmark last year. In comparison to 2008, last year was an increase of 16%. Half the people in the group who moved were born in Denmark, but a third were not born in either Sweden or Denmark. The latter group is getting proportionally bigger. Nine years ago, 15% were not born in Sweden or Denmark, while last year this was 32%.

Ten years after the Oresund bridge opened, the difference in the number of people moving to and from Sweden has been virtually eliminated.

While in 2006, the number of people moving from eastern Denmark to southern Sweden was three times as high as in the opposite direction, last year it was just a tenth higher.


Sources: Kristeligt Dagblad, Fyens Stiftstidende (Danish)