In May, the municipalities were asked to accept 7,000 more refugees than they had already agreed to. The deadline for giving an answer back to the Directorate of Integration and Diversity expired on 31 August, and on Tuesday morning it became known that the municipalities have decided to settle 34,000 refugees. Norwegian municipalities were asked to settle a total of 38,000 during the year. IMDi is still waiting for a response from half of the municipalities. – This means that we are not quite on target. We are now looking forward to receiving responses from the remaining municipalities. We strongly encourage you to adopt in line with the request. IMDi will guide and support municipalities in this work, says Acting Director of IMDi Lisbeth Fransplass Røren. Municipalities can receive NOK 50,000 per person they settle in addition to the original request from IMDi. Downvoted One of the municipalities that has been in doubt is Ålesund municipality. In February they decided to accept 300 refugees, but in May they were asked to accept 170 more. This was voted down in the chairman’s meeting at the end of August. Høyre was one of the parties that voted against settling more refugees. But mayoral candidate Monica Molvær (H) says they may have to make a new assessment. – Hopefully, other municipalities have the capacity to take over, but if there is still a crisis, we will have to make a new assessment later on whether we can have the capacity, she says. Monica Molvær, mayoral candidate for the Conservative Party in Ålesund municipality, says that accepting refugees is a big job. Photo: Josef Benoni Ness Tveit / news More challenges Several municipalities have said that they are struggling to find enough housing for refugees, school capacity is overstretched and there is a lack of nursery places. When Ålesund was asked to accept a total of 470 refugees, the municipal director put his foot down. He believed that they do not have the capacity and resources to do so. Thus, with a narrow majority, it was decided to go against IMDi’s call to settle more people. – When the municipal director says we don’t have the resources to accept more people, we also have to listen to the professionals who write the case papers and give us information. We have to welcome the refugees in a good way too, says the mayoral candidate. Molvær emphasizes that accepting refugees is a big job, because it requires many services working together. – Impressive efforts Lisbeth Fransplass Røren in IMDi says there are some municipalities that report that they have challenges in providing enough housing and sufficient capacity in municipal services such as health, schools and kindergartens. – At the same time, we see an impressive effort to find good solutions in a demanding situation. And the municipalities are still settling at a high pace. UDI has reported a strong increase in arrivals in recent days. The high pace of settlement will continue beyond the autumn, concludes Røren.
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The municipalities were asked to accept more Ukrainian refugees – not all want it – news Møre og Romsdal – Local news, TV and radio
