Javier Jiménez-Ugarte
Spain’s Ambassador to Sweden
What has happened in Europe until now due to the refugee crisis has taught us that the interests of different Governments, subjected to the public opinion and the political criticism as always, can end up prevailing over any call for solidarity.
In the case of Sweden, given its traditional openness to the reception of refugees according to the asylum regulations, and its availability, until recently, of economic resources, the evolution was much slower than what happened, for example, in Hungary, the Czech Republic or Malta.
This Prime Minister, the social democrat Stefan Löfven, kept saying, on 6 September, that: “My Europe hosts refugees. My Europe does not build walls”. Despite of knowing that recommendations made by his predecessor Reinfeldt –part of the “Alliance” of centre-right-, such as that of “opening our hearts to immigrants”, had appeared among the causes of his electoral defeat.
Finally, the exponential increase of the number of asylum seekers getting to Sweden led to the adoption of extraordinary measures that, although “temporary”, put an end to the generosity displayed until now.
In November, drastic measures agreed with the opposition were presented: introducing controls at the border, reducing social rights of emigrants until the “minimum applicable” in Europe, limiting the granting of visas for permanent stays, strongly restricting family reunification, etc.
The Prime Minister tried to explain again, in its New Year’s Eve speech, that what happened was only the result of the “impossibility faced by Sweden to keep offering a decent reception for new asylum seekers so that they could benefit from the same social services as their predecessors”.
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Nobody can deny the huge damage that adopting so many restrictions has caused to the “Swedish Brand”
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Figures by the end of 2015 were especially dramatic. Sweden had taken in, according to the Minister Morgan Johansson, “160,000 refugees and 35,000 unaccompanied minors”, mostly, from Afghanistan.
The new measures have reduced pressure and “we have gone from 11,000 asylum seekers per week to only 2,000, which still cannot be considered to be enough”.
Identity controls in railway transport it the Öresund bridge, which connects Sweden to Denmark, have been enormously controversial. Not only has its constitutionality been questioned, but that great area of richness between Copenhagen and Malmö has seen its continuous industrial and scientific development at risk. Besides, and as former minister Carl Bild wrote on his much followed tweet, “the historical solidarity between the Nordic countries had cracked”.
This Government looked for a second justification for what had been decided. The European Union has collected successive failures, without being able to impose any “new asylum policy” or to put into effect the “relocation” of the thousands of refugees arriving in Italy and Greece. Sweden has also demanded the redistribution of 23,000 immigrants hosted here after having travelled around other European countries without complying with “Dublin Regulation”, which obligates to seek for asylum in the entry country.
Morgan Johansson roundly affirmed that “Sweden has taken in more than 100,000 Syrian, 1% of this country’s population. If the rest of the EU had done the same, a total of 5 million Syrian would be enjoying protection in Europe by now”.
Despite everything, no one can deny the great damage that having to adopt so many restrictions has caused to the “Swedish Brand”. The asylum policy maintained until now was part of its essence. As Tove Lifvendahl wrote, “of humanitarian power, Sweden is now like the rest of countries”. Another great commenter, Peter Wolodarski, completed the self-criticism affirming that “the richer we become, the less misery we want to see in our own society”.
