Sweden asks Finns to take refugees

Swedish Prime Minister Goeran Person last week urged Finland to take in more refugees, saying it was unfair that some European Union member states received more asylum seekers than others.

"We cannot have a situation where a few countries have a generous asylum policy while others go the other way. If there is an area where we need a common European policy, it is this one," Persson said in an interview with the Finnish news agency STT-FNB.

He asked Denmark, which currently holds the rotating presidency of the 15-nation EU, to work toward a common EU immigration policy.

Sweden received over 100,000 refugees during the Bosnia crisis in the mid-1990s alone, Persson said.

"That is 1 percent of our population. I am wondering if Finland received any refugees at all," Persson said.

According to official statistics, 1,651 people applied for political asylum in Finland last year, of whom only 37 percent had their applications accepted. Finland also took in 739 refugees through the U.N. High Commis-sioner for Refugees' resettlement program.

At the same time, Sweden received 23,515 asylum applications, of which 55 percent were accepted, and took in 1,279 refugees through the U.N. system.

The same figures for Denmark were 8,385 asylum seekers, with an acceptance rate of 53 percent, with 2,020 refugees resettled through the U.N. program.

Norway received 14,782 asylum applications in 2001, of which 40 percent were accepted. It took in 1,480 refugees through the U.N. system.