(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)
Gro Harlem Brundtland's reign from 1986 to 1996, interrupted only by one year with the Syse government in 89-90, was a continuous downturn for people who came to Norway to seek political asylum.
While every fourth or fifth applicant received political asylum during the Willoch era until 1986, the percentage plummeted every year after Gro took over. The tightening culminated in the fact that poor six people were granted political asylum in 1996 when Gro resigned. This represented 0,3 per cent of the total number of asylum seekers.
- I hear these figures with great interest, but hesitate to draw political conclusions from them. I have to take a closer look at the material, and I think more analysis and research is needed before solid conclusions can be drawn, says former Prime Minister Kåre Willoch to Ny Tid.
90 percent off
Based on figures and information from the Norwegian Directorate of Immigration (UDI), Ny Tid has compiled statistics on the number of individual asylum seekers granted asylum in Norway in the years 1982-2000, how many have been granted a residence permit on humanitarian grounds and how many have been rejected ( see table on this page).
Set up against who had the government during the different periods, it presents an interesting picture. From 1986 to 1987 there is a marked percentage change. While 23,2 per cent received asylum in 1986, the proportion fell to 7,8 per cent in 1987. The following year, when the UDI was created in the middle of Gro's first reign, the proportion had shrunk to 2,3 per cent.
Gro's first full year of government in 1987 did not mean that the percentage of rejections for asylum applications went up significantly. The decline in granted asylum was offset by the proportion of people who received a residence permit on a humanitarian basis.
But in the next few years, fewer people were granted a residence permit on humanitarian grounds. The percentage of refusals fell to the right, with 90 per cent in 1993 being the worst year.
Great work
- It is extremely interesting with the figures the material Ny Tid presents. This supports what I mentioned in the book "Good Norwegians", namely that Gro Harlem Brundtland personally was behind the violent tightening of asylum policy, says Øyvind Johnsen, former Secretary General of Amnesty International in Norway and foreign editor at the time Arbeiderbladet.
When Johnsen's book was published in 1995, it created a lot of political uproar. Minister of Justice Helen Bøsterud even found it timely to convene a press conference to refute the accusations in "Good Norwegians".
- My conclusion about Gro's role was not based on a review of figures, but information I received as Secretary General of Amnesty. When Gro took power, Amnesty and others were summoned to a meeting with Minister of Justice Bøsterud, where she said that the liberal line should be followed up. But a month later, we were summoned by the Minister of Justice again and told that it should be tightened, says Johnsen, who today works for Geelmeyden & Kiese.
Bluffers
Øyvind Johnsen still believes that Gro Harlem Brundtland was the great director of austerity policy.
- I stand by what I wrote in 1995; there was a connection between Gro's restrictive regime and racism among the people. Between 1987 and 1995-96, there was an extremely aggressive climate in asylum policy. The reason why Gro tightened up was simply that she was afraid of fleeing to the Progress Party, he says.
- Gro's tightening was accompanied by a marked change in the rhetoric about refugees. Before her reign, it was mostly about solidarity and helping people in need. Gro and co. talked, however, that 90 percent of the asylum seekers were economic refugees, that they were bluffers and that kind of negative publicity.
Johnsen's conviction of Gro's role does not diminish when Ny Tid presents the figures for appeals. From 1993 to 1996, none – not a single person – of the thousands who appealed the rejections of their asylum applications in the first instance were granted asylum.
Little climate change
After Bondevik took over the government offices at the end of 1997, the figures given in the table here in Ny Tid show that there is again a change, albeit to a lesser extent. The proportion of granted asylum increases to 3-4 per cent, while the proportion of refusals moves down towards the 50s.
Øyvind Johnsen says that he has not followed closely the developments in recent years to comment on this, but points out that Justice Minister Anne Holt in the Jagland government had already begun some softening.
- She let the Bosnians stay in Norway, and ensured a small climate change. I link the austerity policy first and foremost to the Brundtland regime, he says.
Espen Thorud, political scientist and adviser in the Ministry of Local Government and Regional Development's department for Sami, minority and immigrant issues, also points out a certain change with the Bondevik government. In the book "Immigration Policy and Immigration Act – Contemporary Wall of Complaints" published in 1998, he writes the following:
“In 1997-98, new guidelines were introduced which entailed a certain softening of refugee policy. Liberalization was relatively immediately followed by an increase in the number of asylum seekers after several years with low numbers of arrivals. "
Effective visa requirement
Thorud also addresses problems in relation to which asylum seekers and the number that the authorities want to come to Norway, but points out that some measures have proven to be "very effective".
One example is the introduction of a visa requirement for Bosnians in the autumn of 1993, which led to an "almost immediate halt" in the arrival of individual asylum seekers from Bosnia and Herzegovina.
This type of instrument gives signals, writes Thorud, which affects the influx and composition of refugee immigration “more or less regardless of the objective situation in the refugee country.
As adviser Thorud further points out: "There was no significant improvement in the situation in Bosnia until 1996, while the flow of asylum seekers stopped abruptly in the autumn of 1993".
- The visa requirement is one of several things that make the Article of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights on the right to seek asylum an illusory right for many. But the Norwegian authorities will probably say that we comply with the article because people can apply for asylum in Norwegian embassies and representative offices around the world, comments Øyvind Johnsen laconic, and believes that the visa requirement has contributed to the attitude that those seeking asylum from their home country are good people , while those who go to Norway illegally "sneak in the queue" and should not be rewarded for it.
Asylum-consensus
One who does not want to go well for the hypothesis that the asylum statistics from 1982-2000 reflects the different governments' asylum-friendliness, is Professor Grete Brochmann at the Department of Social Research.
- Apart from the Progress Party, there has generally been a consensus among the other parties on asylum policy. It is true that a very restrictive policy was created in the late 80s, and that Brundtland was prime minister then. But this coincided with a marked influx of asylum seekers to Norway during this period. It is not a given that the Willoch government had not tightened in the same way, she says.
Next year, there will be several volumes of history work on immigration to Norway, coordinated by the University of Oslo. Brochmann is one of the co-authors, and is responsible for the period 1975-2000.
- Crocodile tears
b-ui: – As for the Bondevik government, it had to do something when it came to power, in that the Center Parties had expressed themselves very critical of the asylum policy in opposition. For example, they cried big crocodile tears in the Gholam case, where the Labor Party believed that the family was lying about their Afghan nationality. But after a few months in power, the Bondevik government also came to the conclusion that they had been deceived by the Gholam family. In fact, the Jagland government with Minister of Justice Anne Holt already began a softening process in her short time in power before Bondevik took over, Brochmann points out.
One of the reasons for the embellishment in the late 90s, according to Brochmann, was the constant critical media reports on individual cases.
- In addition, Norway had been criticized by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees for the low proportion of people who were granted political asylum in this country. And it is quite true that there is a low proportion who receive political asylum in Norway compared to other countries in Europe, she adds.
But if you include people who are given protection for other reasons, Brochmann believes that Norway is in the middle of the tree in a European context.
- Norway has taken a restrictive line, but not significantly more restrictive than other countries, she concludes.
- Unusually disloyal
According to the professor, the UDI's role in this context is to implement the government's policy.
- The UDI was planned long before the rush of asylum seekers in the late 80s, says Brochmann, who is wondering about Sylvia Brustad's criticism of the UDI after she became Minister of Local Government.
- It is unusually disloyal of Brustad to criticize the UDI in public as she does. After all, she has the ultimate responsibility for the UDI, Brochmann points out.
Øyvind Johansen also believes that the UDI's estimates and judgments depend on the signals the agency receives from the authorities at any given time.
Based on the asylum figures in Ny Tid's table, it may seem as if the UDI has acted on very restrictive signals from all governments since the agency was established in 1998, not least during Gro Harlem Brundtland's time as prime minister.
