Border checks in Sweden, Denmark
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DENMARK imposed temporary identity checks on its border with Germany yesterday following a similar move by Sweden, dealing a double blow to Europe’s fraying passport-free Schengen area amid a record influx of migrants.
Sweden began checking documents of travelers from Denmark for the first time in half a century, causing delays of up to 50 minutes for trains and buses crossing the 7.9 kilometer Oresund Bridge, Europe’s longest combined road and rail bridge. However, private vehicles were exempt from the checks.
Denmark’s prime minister said Sweden’s move gave his country no option but to impose its own border controls and he appealed to the European Union to take “collective decisions” to better protect its external borders against the tide of migrants.
“The Swedish ID checks can increase the risk of a large number of illegal immigrants to accumulate in and around Copenhagen,” Lars Lokke Rasmussen told a news conference in Copenhagen, justifying the new controls on the German border.
Last year some 163,000 refugees sought asylum in Sweden, the largest number for any EU country relative to its population. But with arrivals running at around 10,000 a week in November, mostly traveling through Denmark, the Swedish government has said it is time to tighten border controls and asylum rules.
Thousands of commuters use the Oresund Bridge — familiar to fans of crime drama series “The Bridge” — to shuttle by car, train and bus between the Danish capital Copenhagen and the Swedish city of Malmo.
Travelers expressed dismay at the new checks.
“I paid 230 euros (US$250) for these tickets. This is Europe, not Africa. Why these checks?” said Gezahegn Abebe, an Ethiopian migrant living in Norway as he stood at the train station by Copenhagen airport before trying to head to Sweden.
Returning home from a visit to Germany, Abebe said he had not been allowed through by security guards when he showed his Norwegian residence permit. Unlike Sweden and Denmark, Norway is not in the EU but it is a member of the Schengen zone.
“They said this is not a passport. If you don’t have a passport you can’t go,” Abebe said.
More than a million migrants fleeing conflicts and poverty in the Middle East and beyond sought shelter in Europe in 2015 and many more are expected to come during 2016.
The unprecedented numbers have strained the EU’s free movement policy and attempts to create a single economic area, with several countries re-introducing border controls.
Rasmussen said the Danish border controls would last for 10 days but could be extended.
Officials in Germany, which is struggling to absorb about a million migrants who arrived last year, said they were paying close attention to the new Danish border checks and their possible impact on the northward flow of migrants into Denmark.
ID-free travel within the Nordic region — attractive to migrants due to high standards of living and generous benefits — dates back to the 1950s, when Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland and Iceland signed a passport union. Around 15,000 commuters cross the strait between Sweden and Denmark every day and there are worries that businesses will be hit.
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