This year's national target is to arrange 2,200 spots for refugees in Finnish municipalities. It is already clear that this goal will not be reached. According to the local government association, this is because the financial reimbursement offered to municipalities by the state is insufficient.
The Immigration Service's aim is for all asylum seekers to leave reception centres within two months of being granted residence permits. However in practice some are obliged to wait as much as a year before a suitable relocation site is arranged.
"Time spent at a reception centre is an interim period during which one has no idea of what the future will hold," notes Veikko Pyykkönen, Senior Officer at the Immigration Service. "The longer this period is, the greater difficulties one may have eventually integrating into society."
The system depends on municipalities' notifying the Service as to how many refugees they are prepared to voluntarily accept. The central government pays them 2100 euros a month per accepted refugee for three years -- or a total of 75,600 euros per individual.
State Fees Frozen for 17 Years
This sum, which was originally set in 1993, was raised by 10 percent in the beginning of this year.
According to Anu Wikman-Immonen, Co-Ordinator of Immigration Affairs at the Association of Local and Regional Authorities, this is simply not enough.
"For instance, social and healthcare costs have risen by around 56 percent," she says. "The municipalities have proposed that the reimbursement be increased by 40-50 percent from their current level to reach the 1993 value."
Last year, the Interior Ministry's goal was to find homes for 2,000 asylum seekers, but municipalities only agreed to take about 1,400. Meanwhile overcrowded reception centres have begun to offer accepted asylum seekers incentives to move out on their own.
However this worries local authorities, who are not sure how they can meet the needs of refugees who move into their areas without prior notification. The Immigration Service shares this concern.
"The current official system does not work," asserts Pyykkönen. As he sees it, the best solution is to raise the subsidies paid to municipalities.
"This would be best for both these individuals and for society as a whole," he concludes.
