Finland. The Finnish Immigration Service freezes its decision-making on Iraqi and Somali asylum claims for the time being.

The Finnish Immigration Service informs:

The Finnish Immigration Service freezes its decision-making on Iraqi and Somali asylum claims for the time being.

This is due to the ongoing assessment of the security situation in Iraq and Somalia. At the same time, EU practices and possibilities to return people to Iraq and Somalia are reviewed. The assessment will be completed within the next couple of weeks. The guidelines for making decisions on asylum applications are changed if the information obtained shows it to be necessary.

Our preliminary data on, for example, the decision practices in other EU states confirms our impression that the guidelines are to be made stricter.

The decision-making is put on hold so that the pending applications from Iraqi and Somali nationals can be treated equally and according to the same guidelines that may possibly change.

Some asylum seekers have received protection solely due to the security situation

According to the present guidelines set out by the Finnish Immigration Service, asylum seekers from the central parts of Iraq as well as from southern and central Somalia have been granted residence permits on the basis of international protection solely due to the security situation in their home region. Now it has already emerged that asylum seekers who come from, for example, Baghdad and surrounding regions and from Mogadishu are not granted protection automatically in other EU countries.

Every asylum decision is made according to the guidelines that are valid when the application is decided. The date when the application was submitted makes no difference.

Up until 29 September, 17,350 asylum seekers have arrived in Finland this year. 69 per cent of them (11,898 applicants) have come from Iraq and 10 per cent (1,758 applicants) from Somalia.