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SWEDEN

Ferry firm fights new ID checks in Sweden

A company that operates car ferries between Sweden and Denmark has reported the Swedish government to the European Commission for forcing it to carry out ID checks on passengers.

Ferry firm fights new ID checks in Sweden
HH ferry at Helsingør. Photo: Guillaume Baviere/Flickr

HH Ferries Group, the Danish-based firm which operates the service from Helsingør to Helsingborg, claims that the cost of the controls, which it estimates at 100,000 Danish kroner ($14,000) a day, will not be borne by the operator of the Öresund Bridge, its major competitor. 

It is reporting Sweden to the European Commission for violating competition rules, arguing that the Öresund Bridge Consortium, a joint venture partly owned by the Swedish government, was being given preferential treatment. 

“Motorists who use the Öresund Bridge will be checked for the first time when they arrive in Sweden, and that will be done by the Swedish authorities,” Henrik Rørbæk, the company’s chief executive, told Sweden’s TT newswires.

The company is also reporting the Swedish government to the commission for infringing the Schengen border agreement.

HH Ferries announced its move a day after the state rail operator DSB threatened to levy a supplementary charge on passengers travelling to Sweden to cover the costs of the ID checks, which come into force on January 4th. 

Sweden announced in November that it would require transport companies operating trains and ferries to the Nordic country from Denmark to carry out ID checks on all customers crossing into Sweden, as part of efforts to limit the number of refugees heading north.

Danish Prime Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen has been highly critical of the Swedish plan, calling it “a very unfortunate situation” which would endanger the billions spent on building infrastructure and carrying out marketing to create a connected cross-border Öresund Region linking Malmö and Copenhagen. 

According to broadcaster TV2, HH Ferries has hired a private security company to carry out the ID checks. 

The company is owned by First State Investments, an Australian infrastructure fund. 

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NORWAY

Norway to send 200,000 AstraZeneca doses to Sweden and Iceland

Norway, which has suspended the use of AstraZeneca's Covid vaccine until further notice, will send 216,000 doses to Sweden and Iceland at their request, the Norwegian health ministry said Thursday.

Norway to send 200,000 AstraZeneca doses to Sweden and Iceland
Empty vials of the AstraZeneca vaccine. (Photo by GABRIEL BOUYS / AFP)

“I’m happy that the vaccines we have in stock can be put to use even if the AstraZeneca vaccine has been paused in Norway,” Health Minister Bent Høie said in a statement.

The 216,000 doses, which are currently stored in Norwegian fridges, have to be used before their expiry dates in June and July.

Sweden will receive 200,000 shots and Iceland 16,000 under the expectation they will return the favour at some point. 

“If we do resume the use of the AstraZeneca vaccine, we will get the doses back as soon as we ask,” Høie said.

Like neighbouring Denmark, Norway suspended the use of the AstraZeneca jab on March 11 in order to examine rare but potentially severe side effects, including blood clots.

Among the 134,000 AstraZeneca shots administered in Norway before the suspension, five cases of severe thrombosis, including three fatal ones, had been registered among relatively young people in otherwise good health. One other person died of a brain haemorrhage.

On April 15, Norway’s government ignored a recommendation from the Institute of Public Health to drop the AstraZeneca jab for good, saying it wanted more time to decide.

READ MORE: Norway delays final decision on withdrawal of AstraZeneca vaccine 

The government has therefore set up a committee of Norwegian and international experts tasked with studying all of the risks linked to the AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson vaccines, which is also suspected of causing blood clots.

Both are both based on adenovirus vector technology. Denmark is the only European country to have dropped the AstraZeneca
vaccine from its vaccination campaign, and said on Tuesday it would “lend” 55,000 doses to the neighbouring German state of Schleswig-Holstein.

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