The Swedish government will impose temporary border controls from Thursday as it struggles to house a record number of refugees, a turnaround for a country known for its open door policies that also threw down the gauntlet to other EU nations.
The decision underscores Sweden’s growing disquiet that it had reached its limit for dealing with an influx of asylum seekers.
It has forecast that up to 190,000 asylum seekers would 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,” interior minister Anders Ygeman told a news conference called at short notice by the centre-left government.
“If we are to cope with this mutual challenge, the other countries must take their responsibility,” he added.
Sweden has welcomed more refugees per capita than any other EU country.
Ygeman said the controls, which would primarily extend to the bridge across the Oresund strait separating Sweden and Denmark and ferry ports in the region, would be imposed from Thursday for a period of ten days and could be extended by 20-day-periods
The government had warned last week that it could no longer guarantee finding accommodation for newly-arrived refugees.
The Migration Agency already plans to shelter thousands of refugees in heated tents due to a housing shortage, while some people may be put in venues such as ski resorts and a theme park.
The government has also applied to the European Commission to arrange for some of those to be moved to other EU countries.
The UN refugee agency UNHCR said last week that refugees and migrants were likely to continue to arrive in Europe at a rate of up to 5,000 per day via Turkey this winter.
Reuters