Denmark's centre-right coalition won the recent Parliamentary elections by promising extensive changes in the country's policy toward immigrants. The Danish Minister of Integration, Bertel Haarder, 56, is acting on the election promises by working to stem the flow of new refugees and to reduce financial aid to immigrants.

   

The Danish Parliament will debate a tough package of proposed immigration legislation in early March.

   

Denmark's tougher line has led to a good deal of criticism both at home and abroad. Integration Minister Haarder feels that Finland has no right to criticise Danish policy.

"Finland is certainly the last

country who can criticise our policy toward foreigners. Finland has practically no foreigners at all", he says in an interview with Helsingin Sanomat.

   

"When Finland takes in ten times more foreigners and refugees to live on social welfare, then we will listen to Finland's experiences. Now Finland has no such experiences. We do", he says.

   

Officials at Haarder's ministry have prepared a comparative evaluation of Finland and Denmark, which the minister shows off triumphantly.

"Last year Finland had

1,493 asylum seekers. Denmark had 11,554. Denmark approved 15.2% of the asylum applications, while Finland approved 1.6%", Haarder reads from his fresh statistics.

   

He also suggests that Finnish immigration policy is the laughingstock of Europe. As an example he mentions the recent European Union summit in Laeken, where statements by Prime Minister Paavo Lipponen on the refugee issue provoked sarcastic smiles and commentary. "The rest of us here in Central Europe do not want Finland to come and give us any advice on this issue", he says.

After the outburst of sarcasm

on the refugee and immigration question, he also had some words of praise for Finland. Haarder, who once held the post of Minister of Education, admires the Finnish school system.

   

"I always told people to learn from Finland. Finnish schools make demands on the children, and they learn to read. In Denmark no demands are made and the schoolchildren do not know how to read", he says.

   

He also wants to push through a similar line on immigration policy.

   

"The number of immigrants is exploding. We currently have 65,000 immigrants living at public expense. If nothing is done, the number will rise to 165,000 in 20 years", Danish Integration Minister Bertel Haarder explains, criticising the "bomb" his government inherited from the Social Democrats.

   

He feels that the immigrants themselves would prefer a more challenging life than that offered by living on welfare. "As many as 90% of the 15,000 Somalis living in Denmark are without work. They have almost no chances of becoming part of Society."