The Danish Ministry for Immigration and Integration announced on Friday that it will wind back a residency scheme that grants protection to long-term asylum seekers in Denmark.

Today, asylum seekers in Denmark can be granted a residence permit after 18 months, if the Danish government has not been able to deport them.

The system is aimed at people who have been refused asylum by the Ministry for Immigration and Integration, but whose deportation is considered legally unachievable, or “hopeless”.

The ministry refers to these people as udsendelseshindret – meaning hindered from deportation.

The Ministry said that the Immigration and Integration Minister Kaare Dybvad Bek will begin the process by submitting a bill to abolish the residence permit for udsendelseshindret for external consultation.

Where Denmark is forced by its international obligations to grant a residence permit – for example, because the person in question is seriously ill or has close family ties to persons living here – it will be possible to obtain a residence permit according to another provision, said the Ministry.

Dybvad Bek said that the current permit scheme is “expensive to administer” compared to the “very few” residence permits that it grants, and that he believed the abolition is “both reasonable and sensible”.

“It is about foreigners who have had their application for asylum processed according to all the procedural rules, but who do not have a need for protection. They have no right to be in Denmark.”

“I do not want anyone to imagine that this is a revolution in immigration policy. But in principle I think the change is the right way to go.”

“It is also one less scheme that has to be administered, and thus we save a little bit of redundant bureaucracy in this way. “

In the period from 2016 to and including the second quarter of 2024, 18 residence permits have been issued under the scheme, according to the Ministry.

The share of passenger cars in Denmark that are fully electric is now over ten percent for the first time, according to a calculation from the car importers’ trade association, Mobility Denmark, shows that 

In August, 7,050 new electric cars were sold in Denmark, and electric cars made up 55 percent of the monthly car sales.

Tax exemptions have encouraged more Danes to choose an electric car, Mads Rørvig, managing director of Mobility Denmark, tells Ritzau.

“At the same time, there is now a range of electric cars that have a sufficient range, just as electric cars have become available in several price ranges, so this certainly means something.”

“And car buyers’ range anxiety is about to be cured, because there are more charging stations and the cars can drive somewhat longer,” said Rørvig.

He is convinced that electric car sales will only gain even more momentum in the coming years, and that proposed zero-emission zones in Danish cities from the beginningof 2025 will push electric uptake further.

“After all, we have been given a deadline in Europe which states that from 1 January 2035 we may only sell electric cars, so we will reach 100 per cent at some point. That is why we expect that more than every third car in Denmark will be an electric car in 2030, and maybe it will even go even faster,” he added.

While the Skoda Enyaq iV was the best-selling electric car in August, Tesla remains the most-bought brand in Denmark overall.

There are currently 34,318 Tesla Model Ys on Danish roads, closely followed by Tesla’s Model 3, of which 33,396 are registered. This is followed by Volkswagen’s ID. 4 and Skoda Enyaq iV.