Follow RT on In order to better inform public policy while tackling issues of immigrant crime and unemployment, Denmark will now reclassify immigrant groups from various regions of the world.
Denmark currently sorts immigrants into those of ‘Western’ (EU, UK, US, Canada and Australia) and ‘Non-Western’ (everywhere else) origin in immigration and other population statistics.
However, Immigration and Integration Minister Mattias Tesfaye has now announced the introduction of the so-called MENAPT group (Middle East, North Africa, Pakistan and Turkey), a separate category in official statistics.
“We need more honest numbers, and I think it will benefit and qualify the integration debate if we get these figures out in the open, because fundamentally, they show that we in Denmark don’t really have problems with people from Latin America and the Far East. We have problems with people from the Middle East and North Africa,” Tesfaye said.