A survey by Yle's South Savo unit indicates that most of Finland's municipalities do not intend to accept any of the refugees scheduled to arrive in the country under the government's 2014 quota.
The Ministry of the Interior has decided to raise the number of refugees admitted under set quotas next year by 300 because of the crisis in Syria. In 2014, Finland will take in 1,050 quota refugees who are to be settled in municipalities throughout the country.
The Yle survey received responses from nearly half of all local governments. Of the 152 municipalities that provided information, 32 will be accepting quota refugees in 2014. 39 have not yet made a decision. However, 81 were able to say already that none will be accepted.
Money and housing
The biggest single reason mentioned by local governments for deciding not to take in refugees next year is financial - the very tight budgets they have to deal with. Even though the state will provided extra funding, the survey indicated that the sums being offered are not large enough to influence the decision one way or another, except in a few places.
The second most common reason offered for not accepting new refugees is that local governments are focusing on and budgeting for, other activities.
Housing was also noted as a restraint. In practice this means a lack of rental accommodations in the area. A similar argument was made by many concerning the human resources, such as interpreters, that local governments need to handle refugees. This was an issue especially for small, remote communities.
A few of those small, remote municipalities also expressed doubts that refugees would feel comfortable living in such small places. Some replied that past experiences showed that many refugees quickly move on to bigger cities.
Humanitarian act
Approximately one-fifth of the responding municipalities do plan to accept refugees next year. In their responses, the most important factor noted was helping those in need.
On the basis of the survey, it looks as if small municipalities are ready to welcome 5-10 quota refugees in 2014, mid-size municipalities 20-30 and large cities up to around 700. Totalled up, there is still a shortfall of some 350 places.
Yle South Savo carried out the email survey in November of this year. Responses were received from 152 of the country's 320 municipal governments.
