Refugee crisisNorway to offer asylum seekers money to leave the country

Published 26 April 2016

Norway is offering people who seek asylum in Norway a £840 “bonus” in exchange for leaving the country voluntarily. The Norwegian Directorate of Immigration (UDI) said the measure is a cheaper alternative when compared to paying for refugees upkeep in the country’s immigration centers.

Norway is offering people who seek asylum in Norway a £840 “bonus” in exchange for leaving the country voluntarily.

The Norwegian Directorate of Immigration (UDI) said the measure is a cheaper alternative when compared to paying for refugees upkeep in the country’s immigration centers.

Norwegian state broadcaster NRK reported that the measure was launched on Monday, and that the “offer” will run for six weeks, paid on a first-come, first-served basis.

The offer applies to those who arrived in Norway before 1 April this year, and only the first 500 asylum seekers who apply will receive the funds. 

Integration Minister Sylvi Listhaug said she hoped the move would encourage migrants and refugees to return to their home country.

“We need to entice more [people] to voluntarily travel back by giving them a bit more money on their way out,” she said. “This will save us a lot of money because it is expensive to have people in the asylum centers.”

“There are also many who are not entitled to asylum and are going to be rejected,” she added. “It’s better for us to encourage them to travel back.” 

NRK reports that the 10,000 kroner “expenses bonus” will be paid in addition to the 20,000 kroner already offered to migrants and refugees who choose to leave Norway. That money is part of a financial incentive package developed by the International Organization for Migration (IOM) last year.

RT reports that of around 31,000 people who applied for asylum in Norway last year, 7,825 applications were refused. Approximately a third of the total number of refugees were from Syria.

The Norwegian government agreed to take in 1,000 refugees from Syria as part of an EU agreement. Critics of the government, however, slammed the government’s January decision to more than 5,500 people back to Russia, after they exploited security gaps along the Russian-Norwegian border to cross into Norway on bicycles.

The UDI said that the high number of migrants and refugees makes it impossible for Norway to process the requests of many of the people arriving from Syria, Iraq, the Middle East, and Africa – and do so in a timely fashion.

“Many cannot wait (for the asylum process to run its course). They have family at home who expect them to be able to help,“ said Katinka Hartmann, head of the UDI, in December.

“For a long time, Norway has not been able to forcibly return people to Somalia, but now that we can, I think that more Somalis with an obligation to leave will opt for assisted return. 

“It’s important to have more initiatives of this kind in the future,” she said.