Minister of Migration and European Affairs Astrid Thors (Swedish People’s Party) will soon be presented with a proposal on the level of supplementary benefits to be paid to asylum seekers.
Finland currently provides asylum seekers considerably more in handouts than any other country of the European Union. The Ministry of the Interior has been given the task of ascertaining if the availability of money is a factor that encourages more asylum seekers to come to Finland.
The ministry is also studying if changes are needed to the rules in order to reduce the attractiveness of coming to Finland to file unfounded asylum applications in order to collect the benefits while the application is processed. The ministry is also pondering if the benefits could be given in the form of goods and not cash.
The number of asylum seekers is expected to rise to 6,000 this year. Last year the figure was just over 4,000, and in 2007 it was 1,500.
More than half of the applications are found to be without merit.
The money paid to asylum seekers is ten per cent less than for Finns, because asylum seekers already receive certain material benefits at the refugee reception centres.
An adult asylum seeker without income gets EUR 375.71 a month in supplementary benefits.
In Sweden the figure is EUR 207 a month. In Germany and a few other Central European countries, the subsidies are given in the form of food and services.
The money is meant for spending on food, clothing, local public transport, and over-the-counter medicines.
The availability of food at the reception centre reduces the amount of cash that the asylum-seeker is entitled to.
Additional discretionary benefits are sometimes given for children’s supplies and eyeglasses.
