The Danish government is hammering out a deal to transfer hundreds of foreign criminals to a prison rented and run by the Danish authorities in Kosovo.
The Muslim-majority Balkan territory, whose bloody declaration of independence from Serbia a few years after a NATO bombing campaign against what was then Yugoslavia remains unrecognised by many countries including EU member-states Cyprus, Greece, Slovakia, Spain, and Romania, is in advanced talks to take around 300 of 368 foreign prisoners in Denmark who have been scheduled for deportation.
The scheme would see foreigners transferred to the overseas prison, which would have “physical conditions that basically correspond to those in Danish prisons”, from 2023, according to a Danish government paper cited by The Times, which suggests the facility would be Danish-run and subject to Danish law.
Eris Hana, a member of the Kosovar negotiating team who serves as a senior legal adviser to the Ministry of Justice in the country, has said the Danes will sweeten the deal with donations of “more than 60 million euros [$68 million] for 10 years,” which the Associated Press suggests will be invested in green energy.
Denmark, despite its recent controvesial impeachment of former government migration minister Inger Støjberg for separating migrants aged as old as 32 from brides as young as 14 — marriageable age in the country is 18 — is among the stronger countries in Western Europe when it comes to immigration and integration, and the Kosovo scheme is not the only tough measure is has implemented or has considered implementing.
The Times notes, for example, that is is also considering partially isolating foreigners awaiting deportation on an island in the Baltic, and is in talks with Rwanda about processing asylum claims there rather than in-country, since removing migrants becomes much more difficult once they are in the country even if they are not found to be legitimate refugees.
The Danes are already repatriating migrants to parts of Syria they deem safe, said they are aiming for “zero asylum seekers”, banned foreign ex-prisoners from gaining citizenship, and is looking to impose a 37-hour work requirement on migrants if they are to receive and state welfare.
The Danish approach to foreign criminals and illegal immigration contrasts sharply with the British approach, which has been marked by a lot of tough talk on things the government supposedly wants to do but never seems to deliver while deportations fall and border crossings rise.
The only meaningful immigration policy the British government has successfully implemented is importing more migrants via resettlement schemes, with the Priti Patel-led Home Office boasting that it “resettles more refugees than any other country in Europe”.
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