Sweden PM defends temporary border controls

“The migration office is under strong pressure… and the police believe there is a threat against public order”, Ygeman told a press conference.

The leaders did sign up to an action plan of short and longer term measures to halt the flow of Africans coming to Europe and steps to send back those who don’t qualify for asylum.

Swedish officials say the border checks aren’t meant to turn away people who want to seek asylum in Sweden, but to make the asylum process more orderly and prevent people from transiting through Sweden to seek asylum in neighboring Finland and Norway.

Seven of those who died were children.

The Scandinavian country expects to receive up to 190,000 asylum seekers this year, which is the equivalent of 1.5m people arriving in a country the size of Germany, and more than double the 80,000 Sweden took in last year.

In fact it’s striking to note that the Danish right wing is urging the Danish government to copy the Swedish action and impose border controls as well, that’s got to be the first time Sweden’s stance on immigration has been admired by the most right-wing Danish party.

In light of this, the minister said that Sweden is the country that has taken “the greatest responsibility for the refugee crisis” and that other countries need to follow suit. “To succeed, we need to work together with other European countries and our partner countries in Africa in addressing the root causes of irregular migration and promoting economic and equal opportunities, security and development”. European and African leaders met in Malta this week to discuss the crisis, but the fruits of the meeting have already been labeled as falling short of what’s needed.

The U.N’s. refugee agency said last week that refugees and migrants were likely to continue to arrive in Europe at a rate of up to 5,000 per day via Turkey this winter.

But Senegal’s president Macky Sall told reporters that, while the fund was “a very good beginning”, it was “not enough for the whole of Africa”.

There is widespread skepticism that the African plan can meet the goal of reducing the numbers of refugees heading for Germany, Scandinavia and other destinations, because it does not directly address the huge numbers of migrants coming from Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria. But the progress on that has been meager, with only 130 resettled so far.

The European Union is offering Turkey – which is hosting more than 2 million Syrian refugees – a package of sweeteners for it to crack down on border security, including billions of euros and speeding up its European Union membership talks.

Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said: “The Dublin system is dead”.

Austria says it is building a fence on a small stretch of its border with Slovenia, the latest country to erect a barrier in efforts to manage the flow of migrants.

Croatia criticised the Slovenian fence, saying it would be better to spend money on preparing reception centres for migrants.