- Border controls on Öresund bridge and ferry routes
- Migration agency boss: we can no longer do our job
Police in southern Sweden began on Thursday at noon to implement controls at the country's southern borders, following an announcement by Anders Ygeman, Minister for Home Affairs, on Wednesday evening.
At 12.39pm officers stopped a train arriving at Hyllie station in Malmö to check passengers' identification documents. Police were also checking papers at at terminals for ferries arriving from Denmark and Germany.
The checks, which come at the request of Sweden's Migration Agency, will continue take place on the Öresund Bridge and the ferry terminals in southern Sweden and apply initially for 10 days, after which they could be extended in 20-day periods.
“We're not going to control all who are travelling across the border, but there is going to be a mainly randomized selection,” he said.
“There are certain traffic intensive areas, like the Öresund Bridge, where we cannot check everyone,” he added about the bridge which sees around 20,000 cars travel between Sweden and Denmark every day.
Mikael Hvinlund and Anders Ygeman at a press conference on Wednesday. Photo: Henrik Montgomery/TT
Refugees arriving on the ferry from Rostock to Trelleborg. Photo: Marcus Ericsson/TT
Green Party migration spokeswoman Magda Rasmusson said in a statement that the border checks “do not mean that the right to have your asylum case heard has changed for those who come here.”
The main opposition Moderates, which have recently toughened their line on asylum, said the latest move would be insufficient.
Speaking to SVT, leader Anna Kinberg Batra said steps were needed to make sure that those who did not have a right to stay in Sweden are sent home. She said she was willing to initiate new talks with the government: “We need to get better order in an unsustainable situation,” she said.