A regional authority in Norway has struck down an attempt by a city council to only take Ukrainian refugees and not others.
The office of the Country Governor of Oslo and Viken said it had asked the municipal council in Drammen to explain its decision only to accept refugees from the eastern European country, claiming that they would be easier to integrate.
The council, which is led by a bloc of populist and anti-immigration parties, sparked fury in February after voting to adopt the controversial policy.
Up to a third of the population in Drammen, which lies 43 km southeast of Oslo, are of immigrant background.
The governor said the municipal decision "involves direct discrimination based on nationality".
Norway’s Prime Minister, Jonas Gahr Store, previously rebuked the council for the decision and said it was not for local authorities to decide for themselves which refugees they can accept.
He condemned the municipal decision and said it was “not legal”.
Kristin Surlien, a senior member of Hoeyre in Norway's fifth largest town, told the local newspaper Drammens Tidende that the ruling was a surprise.
“We take note of the decision and will discuss the way forward both internally in the Conservative Party and between the four parties.”
According to Norway Statistics, there are mainly Poles, Lithuanians, Iraqis, Pakistanis and Somalis. The Scandinavian country of 5.5 million people has since 2022 given shelter to 70,800 Ukrainians, according to the Norwegian Directorate of Immigration.
In 2023, there were 877,227 migrants in Norway, mainly from Poland, Lithuania, Sweden, Somalia and Germany, according to official statistics.
