A foreigner hoping to become a Danish citizen must meet a long list of criteria and pass a number of tests. If a person is unable to do this - for example due to disability or sickness - there is access to individual dispensation, granted according to the decision of a committee of 17 members of parliament. These members cast secret votes. Last year, 97.7% of applications for dispensation were refused without any explanation.

DR News has looked into the issue and requested access to all cases from 2020 where the applicant was not able to meet the citizenship criteria and therefore requested special dispensation. This request requires by law a statement from a doctor, providing an assessment of an applicant's chances of being able to meet the criteria in the future. Even if a doctor says there is no chance of improvement, it rarely affects the final decision.

The Danish Medical Association believes it is impossible for doctors to make such assessments, and in 2018 filed a complaint with the government stating as such, but nothing has changed. Even applicants who are illiterate, psychotic, have an intellectual disability or brain damage, or suffer from anxiety triggered by tests and exams, are turned down. Doctors are frustrated that politicians with no competencies in this area are able to overrule their professional medical evaluations.

The equality office of the Danish Institute for Human Rights has said that "if a person with a disability is not able to live up to requirements concerning language or full-time occupation, then the disabled person is put in a less favourable position than other applicants". The UN Convention on Disabilities states that disabled people must have equal access to citizenship, while the UN Convention on Refugees also states that a host country must facilitate refugees' access to citizenship.

The rules for obtaining Danish citizenship are among the toughest in the world, and they have been tightened many times - most recently in 2018, 2019 and 2021. Today, the basic requirements are:

• nine years of legal stay;
• possession of a permanent residence permit for at least two years;
• full-time employment for the last three and a half years;
• no debt to the state;
• no criminal sentences (including conditional) or penalties above a certain amount;
• passing of the Danish3 exam;
• passing of the 45-question citizenship test;
• signing of a loyalty oath and shaking of hands with the mayor.

Changes to the criteria have in general been reducing the number of people granted citizenship, and the number of people granted Danish citizenship is now at its lowest point in 40 years. One in every five inhabitants in Copenhagen does not have the right to vote, and one in ten new-borns does not have Danish citizenship. The reduction in the granting of dispensation permission has been particularly dramatic: in 2014 98.5% of applicants for dispensation were granted permission, and by 2020 this had dropped to 2.3%.

Find further statistics and case studies on this topic in this article by DR News.