Denmark’s defence of its welfare state is relentless and, according to its critics, even racist. In October, the Ministry of Finance estimated in its annual report on the subject that immigrants from non-Western countries and their descendants withdrew a net 31 billion kroner ($4.9 billion) from public finances in 2018, equivalent to about 1.4% of GDP. Immigrants from Western countries, on the other hand, made a net contribution of 7 billion kroner (see chart). According to Torben Tranaes of the Danish Centre for Social Science Research, it was the data on the fiscal impact of immigration that “changed the view of the social democrats”.
Muslims are at the core of the problem. This year was the first time the ministry produced a separate report on the contributions of people from 24 Muslim countries of origin. They account for 50 per cent of non-Westerners, but 77 per cent of the take. Adding to this concern is the fear that Muslims have ideas about democracy and the role of women that Danes find threatening. Muslims are welcome, says Tesfaye, but “we cannot have double standards. There is not one half of Sharia and one half of the Danish constitution”.
For Muslim listening it sounds like a prejudgement. A law passed in 2018 targeting conservative Muslims forces new citizens to shake hands with a city official at naturalisation ceremonies. Politicians “make you feel like you shouldn’t celebrate Ramadan or Eid or whatever,” says Agob Yacoub, a Syrian refugee. Other groups face no such pressure. Chinese immigrants have not become culturally Danish, but are still “extremely welcomed”, Hedetoft notes. The fact that Muslims are looting the treasury hardly has anything to do with religion, he says. More than half came as asylum seekers or through family reunification, compared to 30 % of other non-Westerners.