During a speech celebrating Denmark's Constitution held in the city of Aarhus, Liberal leader Prime Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen lifted the veil of secrecy over the new European asylum system, the daily newspaper Berlingske reported.
Løkke Rasmussen stressed that common reception and deportation centers will be the focal point of the new system, which is currently being discussed by a number of European nations.
"To put it honestly, this will happen in a country that is not on the list of favorite destinations of migrants," Lars Løkke Rasmussen said.
Løkke Rasmussen stressed that the discussions had already reached an advanced stage.
"Based on my discussions with other European leaders and on the dialogue that is taking place at the official level, I expect the first steps to be taken later this year," Løkke Rasmussen said.
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The Danish prime minister stressed that the current system is no longer working, despite the fact that the number of asylum seekers had reached its lowest point in nine years. According to Løkke Rasmussen, many practical, economic and legal issues remain unresolved. The new system, he ventured, will in itself have a strong deterring effect if asylum seekers know in advance that they will be deported as soon as their request is refused.
The left-wing opposition party Social Democrats earlier proposed that "spontaneous" asylum seekers, unlike bona fide refugees, will be sent to a reception center, for instance, in North Africa while their requests are processed. While this proposal triggered a lot of criticism, Liberal Integration Minister Inger Støjberg said that Denmark was discussing a new European reception system together with 15 other European countries, including Denmark's Nordic neighbors.
According to Berlingske, the core of this system is that anyone seeking asylum must stay in a third country while their application is being processed.
Prime Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen admitted he couldn't be more specific about the country he had in mind, but hinted that this country is outside the EU community.
"There are some countries that have to accept it and receive compensation," he added.
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In the past two years, over 2.5 million people have applied for asylum in the European Union, later known as the European Migrant Crisis. The majority of asylum seekers come from war-ravaged countries in the Middle East and North Africa and include both refugees and economic migrants.
Denmark, a nation of 5.7 million, took in 21,000 asylum seekers in the peak year of 2015, yet has been tightening its immigration laws ever since.
