Norway: No Norwegian, no benefits

[Harold F. Schiffman]

No Norwegian, no benefits

The populist Progress Party (FrP) platform will force immigrants to learn
the Norwegian language or forfeit a range of social benefits. Carl I.
Hagen wants to try and force better integration.


At the party's annual conference for the Oslo FrP, the former party leader
Carl I. Hagen proposed a loss of child benefit payments and other social
aids if immigrants could not document efforts to learn the language. "We
want to impose far more demands on the conditions to be met to be able to
receive public support arrangements," Hagen said. His reasoning is that a
dramatic reduction must be made in the number of children starting school
without being able to speak Norwegian. Hagen, who is vice-president of the
Storting, Norway's parliament, believes that all immigrant parents with
children aged two should be informed, in their own language, of the
conditions needed to receive social support.

The occasion was the discussion of the local party policy and action
program for the coming city council period. The Oslo branch of the party
unanimously backed the proposal to enforce demands for necessary Norwegian
language education to be eligible for social support benefits. Hagen
agreed that the stance was a method of forcing people to learn Norwegian,
and argued it was a way of removing the extreme male dominance exhibited
by denying some immigrant women the opportunity to learn the language.
Hagen confirmed that he would recommend that the party's parliamentary
group push for the measure to be national policy.

"We will no longer accept the development of ghettos and that children are
born in Norway and cannot speak Norwegian. It is a parental
responsibility," Hagen said. Hagen said that if the withholding of
benefits on such conditions was not legal, then the law could simply be
changed. The Oslo FrP also approved a party policy of an immigration halt
to the capital in order to have a period to work on integration of the
existing immigrant population. Other Oslo FrP policies passed at the
weekend congress included, free parking on municipal property during
weekends, no restrictions on automobile use, no winter traffic speed
reductions to reduce pollution, lower parking violation fines, alcohol and
wine on sale in local shops, privatization of water and sewer services,
improved hospital capacity, allowance of skyscrapers and a casino in the
capital.

http://www.aftenposten.no/english/local/article1629589.ece?service=print

***********************************************************************************

N.b.: Listing on the lgpolicy-list is merely intended as a service to its members
and implies neither approval, confirmation nor agreement by the owner or sponsor of
the list as to the veracity of a message's contents. Members who disagree with a
message are encouraged to post a rebuttal.

***********************************************************************************