Norway to stop automatically granting asylum to all Ukrainian refugees

This was announced by Norwegian Minister of Justice Emilie Mehl, RTE reports.

According to her, in February 2022, the country's authorities decided to automatically grant asylum to all refugees from Ukraine. Since then, Norway has taken in a total of 85,000 Ukrainians, which, according to Mehl, is more than the country's northern neighbours.

Therefore, from now on, asylum applications will be considered on an individual basis for residents of six regions in western Ukraine that are located far from the front line.

These are Lviv, Volyn, Zakarpattia, Ivano-Frankivsk, Ternopil and Rivne regions.

The Norwegian government explained this decision by the fact that many refugees put a strain on housing, healthcare and schools in some cities of the country. In addition, the minister noted that ‘the share of men of military age is growing among Ukrainian asylum seekers’.

• In May, Norway said it would individually consider asylum applications from Ukrainians who did not live in Ukraine at the outbreak of the full-scale war.