Finnish PM puts on hold plans to host refugees

PanARMENIAN.Net - Finnish Prime Minister Juha Sipila has put on hold a plan to open his country home to a family of asylum seekers, apparently for security reasons, BBC News reports.

The cabinet security chief told Finnish media that Sipila's offer last September had made the house "too public" for any family to stay there.

The PM had said everyone should "look in the mirror and ask how we can help" new arrivals in Finland. However, anti-immigrant sentiment has hardened in recent months.

One report by Iltalehti newspaper said there were concerns that the arrival of asylum seekers at the house in Kempele in northern Finland would attract anti-immigration protesters.

Some 32,000 people applied for asylum in Finland in 2015, double the expected number, and the Finnish government has predicted 20,000 will be deported.

Sipila said on Sunday, Jan 31, that his offer still stood and once the security situation improved then a family would be able to move in.

Other Nordic countries, Sweden, Norway and Denmark, have all tightened restrictions on asylum seekers in recent weeks.

MPs in Denmark last week backed a proposal to delay family reunions and enable police to seize valuables worth more than 10,000 kroner (1,340 euros; £1,000) from refugees to cover housing and food costs.

More than a million irregular migrants and refugees crossed into the European Union in 2015, mainly via Austria into Germany, and the size of the influx has prompted increasing concern about how they will be integrated.

Austria announced last month that it would place a cap on the number of asylum claims at 1.5% of the country's population over the next four years.

The government said the number of asylum claims would be limited to 37,500 in 2016, falling annually to 25,000 in 2019.

Defense Minister Hans Peter Doskozil said on Sunday that at least 50,000 people, who had either failed in their asylum applications or withdrawn them, would be deported by 2019.

Austria and Germany hope to expand an EU list of "safe" countries, whose citizens have little chance of securing asylum, to include Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia.

Germany, which took in more than 1.1 million asylum seekers last year, is looking at cutting benefits for new arrivals who do not try to integrate into society. Most refugees in Germany are from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan.