People attend a demonstration against the tightening of Denmark's migration policy and the deportation orders in Copenhagen, Denmark on April 21, 2021. (DAVID KEYTON/AP)
COPENHAGEN – Denmark's parliament on Thursday passed a law enabling the Nordic country to relocate asylum seekers to countries outside Europe, defying calls to abandon the plans from NGOs and the United Nations, which fear an erosion of refugees' rights.
The move to pass the bill, with 70 lawmakers voting in favor and 24 against, is an apparent break with the European Union's efforts to overhaul Europe's broken migration and asylum rules, an extremely divisive subject within the bloc.
The bill would allow Denmark to move refugees arriving on Danish soil to asylum centres in a partner country, potentially outside Europe, where asylum seekers would have their asylum cases reviewed and possibly obtain protection in that country.
The wealthy Scandinavian nation, which has gained notoriety for its hardline immigration policies over the last decade, has a declared goal of receiving zero asylum seekers, and instead aims to only accept refugees under the UN's quota system
"If you apply for asylum in Denmark, you know that you will be sent back to a country outside Europe, and therefore we hope that people will stop seeking asylum in Denmark," the government party's immigration speaker Rasmus Stoklund told broadcaster DR earlier on Thursday.
The wealthy Scandinavian nation, which has gained notoriety for its hardline immigration policies over the last decade, has a declared goal of receiving zero asylum seekers, and instead aims to only accept refugees under the UN's quota system.
ALSO READ: Tougher US asylum policy follows in Europe's footsteps
Denmark has yet to reach an agreement with a partner country, but Stoklund said it was negotiating with several candidate countries.
The European Commission, the European Union's executive, questioned the law's compatibility with Denmark's international obligations.
"External processing of asylum claims raises fundamental questions about both the access to asylum procedures and effective access to protection," Commission spokesman Adalbert Jahnz said.
"It is not possible under existing EU rules or proposals under the new pact for migration and asylum," he added.
The United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) last month called on Denmark not to pass the bill, which it says could catalyze a "race to the bottom" if other European countries begin mimicking Denmark's policy.
"UNHCR remains firmly opposed to externalization initiatives that forcibly transfer asylum seekers to other countries," UNHCR Assistant High Commissioner Gillian Triggs said in May.
READ MORE: Germany: New asylum-seekers drop to 186,000 in 2017
"Such practices undermine the rights of those seeking safety and protection, demonize and punish them and may put their lives at risk," Triggs said.
