He said migrants from Syria and elsewhere would “absolutely” have the right to seek asylum, adding: “we won’t give up that principle, it’s an important moral principle and we’re obliged to follow worldwide conventions but we need to have a border control on our borders”.
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Sweden’s border checks will start Thursday and be in place for 10 days.
Sweden is proportionally bearing the biggest burden of the European migration crisis, with 10,000 asylum-seekers arriving every week, and no more short-term space to house them.
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Citing figures from the migration bureau, the Swedish Fria Tider reports that across Thursday-Friday, the first day of border checks, approximately 1,600 migrants applied for asylum in Sweden, no reduction from the same period in the previous week. Many Swedes regard it as a human duty for a rich country to allow those who need refuge in, no questions asked. The bloc estimates that up to 3 million more people could arrive in Europe seeking sanctuary or jobs by 2017.
With refugees flooding into European Union land in the worst migrant disaster since World War Two, the practicality of the Schengen system of open edges of the EU is under stress as never before as EU participants reintroduce managements at their frontiers.
And Sweden’s Prime Minister said the country must, quote, “restore order on our borders”.
Sweden joins a growing list of members of the EU’s passport-free Schengen Area who have imposed temporary controls.
Tensions were also high Thursday in the Balkans, as Slovenia continued to erect a razor-wire fence on its border with Croatia to hold back the migrant influx. Border checks will affect thousands of daily commuters who live in one country and work in the other.
Stepped-up policing of trains arriving from Europe in which authorities can bar anyone without valid travel documents are part of the plan, although Swedish officials emphasized that those wishing to apply for asylum in Sweden would not be sent away.
With the United States now facing a border crisis of its own (the Obama administration estimated that 60,000 children unaccompanied by parents or relatives would pour into the United States last year), it is not hard to imagine how much more hard it would be to control our borders if we had to answer to a North American authority such as the SPP or a North American Union before tightening restrictions.
Many migrants are now coming through Turkey and the western Balkans rather than across the Mediterranean Sea from North Africa. It’s important to note that Sweden is not closing its borders.
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“This is not an issue for one or two or three countries – this is an issue for the whole European Union”, Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Lofven said at the Malta talks.
