Sweden was to impose temporary border controls from yesterday in response to a record influx of refugees, a turnaround for a country known for its open-door policies that also threw down the gauntlet to other EU nations hit by a migration crisis.
The move by a Nordic state that touts itself as a “humanitarian superpower” shows how the flow of refugees into the EU is straining its prized system of open internal borders close to breaking point.
Germany warned it could start sending Syrian refugees back to other EU states from which they came, prompting Hungary to insist it would take none, while Denmark said it was tightening immigration rules and Slovenia began to emulate Budapest in erecting new border fences.
Photo: AFP
Sweden has welcomed more asylum-seeking refugees and migrants per capita than any other EU country and authorities forecast that up to 190,000 asylum seekers could arrive this year, double the previous record from the early 1990s.
“Our signal to the rest of the EU is crystal clear — Sweden is the country that has shouldered the greatest responsibility for the refugee crisis,” Swedish Minister of the Interior Anders Ygeman told a news conference hastily called by the center-left government. “If we are to cope with this mutual challenge, the other countries must take their responsibility.”
Sweden’s border controls will primarily extend to the bridge across the Oresund Strait separating Sweden and Denmark and ferry ports in the region. They were to be imposed from yesterday for a period of 10 days and could be extended by 20-day periods.
The government acted on the same day as EU leaders, at a summit in Malta with African counterparts, offered them aid and better access to Europe for African business and other travelers in return for help in curbing chaotic bouts of migration across the Mediterranean from Africa and promises to take back migrants expelled by EU states.
After African delegations departed yesterday, EU leaders were to hold an emergency summit of their own to review slow progress in implementing steps meant to control the flow of refugees entering the EU via Greece, and negotiations with Turkey to get its help in slowing departures of Syrian refugees.
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