Sweden intends to expel up to 80 migrants who arrived in 2015, after rejecting their asylum requests. This was announced by the Interior Minister of the Scandinavian country, Anders Ygeman.
"We are talking about 60 people, but it could be as many as 80.000," the minister told financial newspaper Dagens Industri (DI) and public television SVT, adding that the government has already asked the police and the Immigration Office to organize the repatriations. Usually expulsions take place on commercial flights, but given the exceptional nature of the situation "we plan to use more charter flights", specified Ygeman.
Sweden, which has 9,8 million inhabitants, registered 163 asylum requests last year. The acceptance rate varies greatly according to nationalities. 2015% of Syrians, who arrived en masse in 90, were accepted, much more than Afghans (35%) or Iraqis (20%). The Swedish office explains that many Iraqis and Afghans can be expelled under the Dublin regulation, which establishes that an asylum application must be examined in the first European country of arrival in a foreign land (as is known, the regulation is difficult to apply and the European Commission is trying to revise it precisely because it exerts excessive pressure on the two main landing countries of migrants, Greece and Italy).
Meanwhile, Holland is also joining the front of rejections, which has put forward a proposal to repatriate migrants and refugees who arrived by sea in Greek territory to Turkey by train. It was Labor leader Diederik Samsom who anticipated the contents of a plan that would have the support of Prime Minister Mark Rutte and which, according to the BBC, is already under discussion at a European level, in particular with Germany, Austria and Sweden. According to the proposal of the Netherlands, which holds the rotating European presidency, the EU will offer Ankara to welcome a maximum of 250 asylum seekers who are already in Turkey each year. The plan "to force a solution," says Samson, should become operational in the spring, before the new wave of arrivals. The Dutch plan is linked to the UN's definition of Turkey as a safe country. In 2015, more than 850 people landed on Greek shores from Turkey.
Finally, Britain has announced through its Home Secretary that it intends to take in unaccompanied children from Syria and other conflict zones, but not those who have already fled to Europe. The ministry said it will work with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to identify "exceptional cases" of children in Syria and neighboring countries in need of asylum. The press rumors according to which, under pressure from various British NGOs and humanitarian associations, the premier would have thought of an ad hoc plan to open the doors to "3 unaccompanied children" already landed in other European countries are thus denied.
