DENMARK STRUGGLES WITH IMMIGRATION AND INTEGRATION

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 COPENHAGEN 000613

SIPDIS

DEPARTMENT FOR EUR/NB

E.O. 12958: DECL: 04/11/2015
TAGS: PGOV SOCI PHUM PINR PTER SCUL DA
SUBJECT: DENMARK STRUGGLES WITH IMMIGRATION AND INTEGRATION

REF: A. COPENHAGEN 0146

B. COPENHAGEN 0011

Classified By: Counselor for Political and Economic Affairs
Blair Hall, Reasons 1.4 (b) and (d)


1. (C) Summary. The integration of Muslims and other ethnic
minorities remains one of the most pressing political and
social issues in Denmark. The government increasingly has
focused attention on this issue, including passing
legislation to assist newly arrived immigrants and
introducing action plans promoting integration and diversity,
but the results have been disappointing. The ethnic
immigrant community in Denmark is experiencing significantly
higher crime rates, higher rates of unemployment and lower
education levels than the general Danish population. Such
results lead critics to question the effectiveness of the
Government's integration policies and suggest that the
government is actually pursuing a misguided and
self-defeating policy of assimilation. Muslim community
leaders believe that integration is hindered by a combination
of ineffective government efforts, societal discrimination as
well as the determination of some Muslims to distance
themselves from Danish society. Finding a successful formula
for integration is an ongoing imperative against a backdrop
of simmering frustration among Denmark's estimated 180,000
Muslims. End Summary.

--------------
Government Integration Policies
--------------


2. (U) Over the past several years the Danish government
actively has promoted integration through legislation and
action plans. Its efforts have produced only mixed results.
The current integration laws were enacted in 1999 to assist
newly arrived immigrants, refugees, and accepted asylum
seekers. This legislation directs municipalities to enroll
newly arrived immigrants into a three-year introduction
program which consists of language training, job
training/placement, short term education and housing
assistance. The legislation contains financial incentives to
municipalities for each individual who becomes gainfully
employed for at least six months, and for successful
completion of a Danish language program.


3. (U) The Government is also tracking the effectiveness of
its integration laws. In March 2005, the Ministry of
Integration published a report evaluating the efforts of
Denmark's municipalities to implement Denmark's integration
laws from 1999-2003. The report indicated that
municipalities made progress during the first four years
since the law was enacted, but also found that not all
aspects of the integration law uniformly are being met.
Newly appointed Minister of Refugee, Immigration and
Integration Affairs Rikke Hvilshj urged local politicians
and public sector managers to make full implementation of the
integration law a top priority.


4. (U) In 2003, the Government introduced the Action Plan to
Promote Equal Treatment and Diversity and to Combat Racism.
This Action Plan focuses on increasing knowledge about
discrimination and racism in Denmark, proposes initiatives to
increase access for ethnic and other minorities into higher
education programs and the labor market, and seeks increased
tolerance of diversity through public debate and dialogue.
The Government also initiated an Action Plan for 2003-2005 on
Forced, Quasi-Forced, and Arranged Marriages. The Action
Plan on Forced Marriages contains initiatives aimed not only
at preventing forced marriages but also improving integration
and gender equality, and promoting the values of free choice
and personal freedom. In 2003, the Government, through a
joint effort by the Ministries of Integration, Employment,
Social Affairs and Gender Equality, Culture, and Education,
published its Vision and Strategies for Improved Integration.
The report concluded that the main goals of integration
policy for the near future should be: a coherent and open
democratic society, access for minorities to education and
training, and access to the labor market.


5. (C) The Government reaffirmed its commitment to pursuing
and promoting its integration policies during the national
election campaign in February. The coalition center right
Government (successfully reelected to a four-year term)
attempted to steer voters away from the issue of immigration
by claiming that it had delivered on its campaign promise in
2001 to tighten immigration laws and asylum policy. Indeed,
Denmark enacted some of Europe's strictest immigration laws
in 2002. Instead, the government parties focused on
promoting its new integration policies intended to address
the disproportionately high crime rate and unemployment among
ethnic minorities. For example, the government vowed to
place 25,000 ethnic minorities into the work force by 2010.
Post-election, the government unveiled a proposal in which
ethnic minorities with limited language and education skills
hired by the state could be paid 80% of the prevailing
minimum wage, and be directed to devote 20% of their time
(unpaid) to job training and improving their general
qualifications.

--------------
Melting Pot or Assembly Line?
--------------


6. (C) Despite all of the Government efforts, integration
remains a mounting challenge for Danish institutions and
society. Frequent reports by the media highlight
disproportionately high crime rates, unemployment, and school
drop-out rates. For example, according to a Danish study
completed in December 2004, criminal activity is 43 percent
higher for non-Western background males than the average for
all males in the population. In Copenhagen 82 percent of
youths arraigned in court in 2004 were members of ethnic
minority groups. According to Denmark's National Statistic
authority, the national unemployment in Denmark in 2004 was
6.4 %, while the rate for ethnic minorities was 19.1%. The
2004 annual report by the Ministry of Refugees, Immigrants
and Integration on immigrants documented that the overall
enrollment rate among 16-19 year olds in Denmark in either
secondary education or vocational training is 74%, but among
ethnic minorities the enrollment rate is only 49%.
Integration Minister Hvilshj acknowledged in a recent lunch
meeting at the Embassy that one of the biggest challenges
facing the Government is stopping the flow of educated
immigrants from leaving Denmark for countries such as the
U.S., UK and Canada. The remaining population of immigrants
tends to be less educated and has a more difficult time with
the integration process.


7. (C) Some critics of the Government's integration policies
suggest that their ineffectiveness is due to policies geared
towards assimilation rather than integration. Leaders of the
Muslim community have claimed in meetings with poloffs that
there is no room for, and more importantly no political will
to develop, cultural pluralism in Denmark. Tellingly, a
senior advisor to Integration Minister Hvilshj commented
during the recent lunch meeting at the Embassy that "we want
them (immigrants) to think like Danes." Despite being born
in Denmark, the children and even grandchildren of immigrants
are widely referred to as "New Danes." Muslim community
leaders lament that their communities are confronted with the
widespread assumptions that integration is achieved only via
complete assimilation and that cultural pluralism is
undesirable in a small country like Denmark. Sensationalist
Danish media coverage of Denmark's Muslim minorities only
aggravates the cultural divide. Muslim leaders further state
that assimilation policies are doomed to failure and will
result in growing dissatisfaction and resentment between
"New" and "Old" Danes.

--------------
Difficulties with the Integration Process
--------------


8. (C) The Muslim community leaders with whom emboffs have
met invariably complain that the integration process here is
particularly difficult for Muslims. They generally dismiss
as superficial the government's action plans aimed at
promoting integration into Danish society. Sukru Ertosun,
Chairman of the Integration Ministry's Council for Ethnic
Minorities told us that the government has consistently
ignored the advice of his 14-member council while tightening
Danish immigration law and asylum policy. Our Muslim
contacts generally characterize the Prime Minister's
much-publicized November 30, 2004, lunch with representatives
of immigrant communities as a public display of tolerance
that lacked substantive follow-up after the cameras were
turned off. Additionally, Muslim community leaders claim
that the government is steering NGO funding aimed at
improving integration toward "pet" issues like combating
forced marriages at the expense of programs aimed at
combating discrimination or promoting cultural diversity.


9. (SBU) Embassy's Muslim contacts also note that integration
is hindered by the subtle discrimination Muslims face on a
daily basis. While all agree that the basic needs of Muslims
are ensured by the generous cradle-to-grave Danish welfare
state, subtle discrimination prevents Muslims in Denmark from
"getting ahead." Pressed for details, these contacts
highlight difficulties community members have in finding
desirable housing or employment if they speak accented Danish
or have a Middle Eastern last name. Where some Danish
politicians see self-created ghettos, our Muslims contacts
counter that ethnically dominated neighborhoods offer the
most accessible housing opportunities. Referring to job
discrimination, one contact joked that Copenhagen has the
best educated taxi drivers in the world.


10. (SBU) Other examples of discrimination cited by our
Muslim interlocutors:
-- The Islamic Faith Society has been trying to secure
permission to found a Muslim cemetery in Copenhagen for the
last several years and only now appears to have won a green
light.
-- The Copenhagen Islamic Culture Center complains that it
was denied permission to build a mosque on existing Culture
Center property (but was allowed to renovate its more
discrete library for prayer services).
-- The Danish media recently reported that ethnic minorities
were routinely being denied entry into several popular
Copenhagen nightclubs.
-- Vandals destroyed about 50 gravestones with Arabic writing
at a Copenhagen cemetery in mid-January; similar vandalism
took place at the same cemetery in 2001.


11. (C) Muslim community leaders also privately concede that
many Muslims share responsibility for integration problems.
For example, Copenhagen City Council member Hamid El Mousti
cites ethnic minorities' widespread failure to learn Danish
well as the key factor hindering their job prospects and
enhancing their reliance on Denmark's generous welfare
benefits. He and other Muslim leaders lament ethnic
minorities' disproportionately high crime rate. A number of
our contacts note that many immigrant parents fail to
encourage their children to complete their education and that
the high dropout rate among Muslim youths marginalizes them
further from the highly competitive Danish job market.
--------------
Comment
--------------


12. (C) The Danish government so far has been more successful
in restricting immigration than it has in promoting real
integration among Denmark's diverse ethnic minority
communities, particularly Muslims. Although the Danish
nation has experienced immigration from Muslim regions for
more than thirty years, by and large the concept of cultural
pluralism is not one ascribed to by most Danes. Indeed, even
though toleration, respect and open-mindedness can be said to
be core Danish values, there also is a stubborn insistence on
traditional form and custom. New arrivals, and even their
children born in Denmark, who for whatever reason do not
conform to cultural expectations are denigrated with the
ultimate put down: "not Danish." In the politically charged
environment that exists today, prospects for meaningful
progress do not appear very encouraging. More likely, the
cultural chasm between the largely homogeneous Danish
population and the nearly four percent of the population who
immigrated to Denmark is likely to remain, if not grow. That
divide is more than just a political lightning rod for a
seemingly perpetual national debate on Danish identity. The
related social problems of unemployment, lack of education,
and crime pose significant challenges to the Danish welfare
state and test traditional Danish tolerance. Moreover,
festering alienation from Danish society among Muslim youth
provides a potential recruiting ground for religious
extremists (Septel). Many Danes -- policymakers and ordinary
citizens alike -- recognize that something has to be done.
They just don't know what.
Light