Call for commission on Denmark's parallel society of immigrants

In response to statistics showing that over half of all non-Western immigrants are unemployed, are strongly over-represented in crime statistics, and children of immigrants are, on average, two years behind in schooling, the Liberals’ (Venstre) integration spokesman, Martin Geertsen, expressed concern about the growing ‘parallel society’ in Denmark.

“A commission could come up with insight and proposals into how things could be improved, both for the individual immigrant and society as a whole, because we can’t afford to pay large groups of society to go around all day without doing anything,” he said. “It’s a major cause for concern when so many immigrants from non-Western countries are so poorly integrated.”

Statistician Jan Pløvsing suggested an integration commission in Sunday’s Jyllands-Posten, saying it’s ‘extremely naive’ to believe that the problem will solve itself in time, because unemployment and criminality have become too deep-rooted in certain communities.

An excellent idea

SPP (SF) spokesperson, Karina Lorentzen Dehnhardt, agreed that something has to be done, but said she didn’t believe that problems are as bad as portrayed by Mr Pløvsing. She said most immigrants gradually get some form of foothold in society, but acknowledged the need for a commission as there’s still a ‘massive group’ that needs to be motivated.

“Both this government and the previous Liberal /Conservative coalition have struggled to come up with any solutions, so a commission would be an excellent idea,” she said.

Read the article on b.dk in Danish here.

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