Finns do not want to receive more immigrants during recession
HELSINGIN SANOMAT
Monday, March 15, 2010
Some three years ago, only 36 per cent of Finns were critical about additional immigrants.
The number of those Finns who are ready to welcome more immigrants has come down by as many as 20 percentage points compared with the corresponding figure in 2007.
”Since the 1980s, Finns’ attitudes toward immigration have become more and more positive, until quite recently. This is a significant change that interrupts a long trend”, says Heikki Ervasti, a social policy professor at the University of Turku.
One of the reasons for this change is sharpened public debate concerning immigration policy and foreigners.
”As immigration is not yet any major phenomenon in Finland, relatively few Finns have personal contacts with immigrants, which is why individual citizens’ views have hardly had any significant impact on the public opinion”, Ervasti argues.
A new development in Finns’ attitudes could be seen already a year ago.
In March 2009, the proportion of those opposed to taking more immigrants was 44 per cent.
”During a recession, people’s attitudes begin to turn more critical, and politicians are keen to benefit from it”, estimates professor of social psychology Karmela Liebkind from the University of Helsinki.
Liebkind has been studying the tone of immigration debates and the ethnic relations in Finland already for 30 years.
Liebkind’s views are shared by Said Aden, the Chairman of the Finnish Somali League.
”Opinions have changed. At the time of economic growth, politicians were flying flags for a more liberal immigration policy”, Aden notes.
”Today the atmosphere is strained. Name calling and out-of-line remarks are frequently heard”, Aden adds.
Aden notes further that today not only the members of the populist True Finns party take a critical attitude toward immigration. Even larger political parties are making more and more negative statements.
”The larger parties are trying to compete with the True Finns for voters, as the parliamentary elections are approaching”, Aden argues.
Aden says that he has been almost amused at the statements made by some Members of Parliament, even by some cabinet ministers.
”They have even suggested that Finland should cut down on the number of quota refugees, even though the quota has not been increased for many years. We are talking about an annual number of fewer than 750 people”, Aden says with some astonishment.
A proposal to reduce Finland’s annual numerical quota for taking refugees was recently proposed by Minister for Foreign Trade and Development Paavo Väyrynen (Centre).
Only the members of the True Finns party have been increasingly satisfied with the way their party has been handling the immigration issue.
Among the members of other parties, the number of those satisfied with the actions of their party has declined. However, half of the respondents are not able to give their opinion concerning the actions of their own political party.
Roughly 26,000 foreigners migrated to Finland in 2009. Of this number, some 15,000 came from outside the EU and received residence permits outside of international agreements on the protection of refugees.
Around 1,300 got a positive asylum decision (the largest groups being from Iraq and Afghanistan), and 843 were granted refugee status, with 727 of these being quota refugees.
The remainder of the 26,000 came from other EU member-states and arrived here either for work or studies.
Source: Helsingin Sanomat