Officials have said that anyone who is seeking asylum in Sweden is welcome and the intention for these checks is to create a more orderly process of arrival for the refugees as well as to deter those trying to pass through Sweden to other Scandinavian countries, according to The Guardian. Leaders from Africa and the European Union are meeting in Malta on Thursday to discuss how to tackle the growing immigration burden.
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All indications suggest the so-called border controls have been deliberately spiked by the government, which has set so many requirements and standards on the police enforcing checks that little has actually changed.
WERTHEIMER: It’s not so much keeping people out as it is trying to be clear on exactly what’s happening.
Border controls were in place at ferry terminals in southern Sweden, where many travellers arrive from Germany and Denmark.
FRANCE: On Friday, France reintroduced border checks as it tightens security ahead of United Nations climate talks in Paris starting November 30.
Speaking at a migration summit in Malta, Lofven said that his European Union partners understand Sweden’s decision, and that EU leaders need to revamp the rules for Europe’s passport-free area. They will be imposed starting Thursday for a period of 10 days and could be extended by 20-day periods.
“We need order, and that also applies to our borders”.
The European Union decision is similar to others granted to Austria, Hungary and Slovenia when they brought in temporary controls in recent weeks. It says 23,000 unaccompanied children have entered Sweden this year, and many are unaccounted for.
Far from the initial assumption that asylum seekers who had either by accident or design lost their passports would be turned away at the border, in practice only Europeans are being required to have their passports checked.
The initiatives presented by the government also included cutting the residency of refugees covered by the UN Convention on Refugees, from five to three years while permits for those granted regular refugee status would be reduced from five to two years.
It’s worth noting that the support for the party has increased dramatically since the elections a year ago, when it pulled in 12.9 percent of the votes.
Considering there are over 100,000 refugees who came to Sweden this year alone, the occasional attack is far from representative of the current attitude towards refugees. Although opinion polls conducted throughout the 2015 migrant crisis suggest the majority of those asked in Sweden approve of the open-door policy on refugees, privately Swedish friends question the country’s ability to cope.
One of the bigger concerns for refugees in Sweden has been settling into life in Scandinavia.
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Since January, 806,000 people have made the perilous sea journey to Europe, with a few 660,700 of them arriving in Greece and 142,400 landing in Italy, new figures from the United Nations refugee agency showed.
