Sweden Introduces Temporary Border Controls to Stem Migrant Flow

The restrictions will begin at midday and last for the next ten days. “If we are to handle this, other countries need to step up”.

“What Steven Löfven has assured me today is that Sweden is not closing itself off. One can continue to go to Sweden to seek asylum, but they want to get a better grip on what is happening”.

Sweden is to introduce temporary border controls in the south of the country from noon tomorrow, according to Swedish Minister for Home Affairs, Anders Ygeman. [Photo by Marcel Mettelsiefen/Getty Images]Sweden appears to be at a breaking point.

Sweden has taken more refugees as a proportion of its population than any other country in Europe as the continent struggles with its worst migration crisis since World War II.

Sweden’s border controls will primarily extend to the bridge across the Oresund strait separating Sweden and Denmark and ferry ports in the region. However, after that the controls can be extended by 20 days at a time.

Mr Ygeman said the centre-left government had acted “in order to obtain security and stability… not to limit the number of asylum seekers, but to get better control of the flow of asylum seekers to Sweden”.

The United Nations says almost 800,000 migrants have arrived in Europe by sea so far in 2015, while a few 3,440 have died or gone missing making the journey. That’s more than the 216,000 who crossed into Europe in all of 2014. Coastguards said they had rescued 27 survivors.

The Scandinavian country has received more refugees per-capita this year than any other country in Europe, with 112,000 applying for asylum so far this year and 190,000 asylum seekers now expected for the year as a whole.

“It depends on how it’s going to be carried out and how extensive the checks are. There must be order in the reception of refugees”.

Mikael Hvinlund of Swedish Migration Board told the press conference that the agency had asked for border controls because it can no longer fulfil its mission.

“We can no longer guarantee shelter”. The European Union and Schengen have failed.

However, the agreement does allow a country to reinstate controls temporarily if there is a serious threat to its “public policy or internal security”.

But speakig from Malta, where he is participating in an EU-Africa summit, Danish prime minister Lars Lokke Rasmusse told the BBC he has not yet consider edestablishing controls.

Tensions in the European Union have been rising because of the pressures faced by those countries where most migrants initially arrive, particularly Greece, Italy and Hungary.

The main opposition Moderates, which have recently toughened their line on asylum, said the latest move would be insufficient.

Speaking in the Maltese parliament on the eve of the summit, the President of the European Council Donald Tusk said the plan was to make “much more progress on poverty reduction and conflict prevention”.

Border controls, the minister believes, will “bring order” to the national asylum system.