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1 What is the Role of other European Countries in the Resettlement
of Vietnamese from Hong Kong? Are our European Partners doing
enough to assist in the Resolution of the Problem?
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European countries have resettled over 8,000 Vietnamese refugees from Hong Kong since 1975. Nearly 6,000 of these have been resettled by EC countries: the FRG has taken over 2,300,
France over 1,500 and Denmark over 1,000. We are grateful to these
countries. We recognise the pressures that they, like we, face.
We and the Hong Kong Government authorities continue to remind
European countries of Hong Kong's predicament as the first asylum
country with the greatest case-load of unresettled Vietnamese
refugees. As in the case of non-European resettlement countries
though, there has been a tendency of late for the European
countries' resettlement rates from Hong Kong to fall as compared
with their resettlement rates from other first asylum countries
in the region. We would of course welcome an improvement and shall continue to seek opportunities for resettlement in Europe.