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Sweden Defends Reintroducing Temporary Border Controls Amid Refugee Crisis
Sweden Defends Reintroducing Temporary Border Controls Amid Refugee Crisis
(about 4 hours later)
VALLETTA, Malta — Sweden on Thursday defended its decision to reintroduce border controls as European Union leaders signed an aid agreement worth 1.8 billion euros with African nations intended to stem the influx of migrants.
VALLETTA, Malta — The European Union stepped closer on Thursday to a deal with Turkey that would represent its most ambitious step yet in trying to regulate the flow of migrants to the Continent.
Prime Minister Stefan Lofven of Sweden framed the issue as a temporary measure to maintain order, but the new controls represent another blow to a flagship European Union policy of allowing free movement of people across most of the bloc’s internal borders.
At the end of a two-day summit meeting on the Mediterranean island of Malta, officials with the European Union said they had agreed to offer Turkey 3 billion euros, or about $3.2 billion, over the next two years to help Turkey cope with the more than two million Syrian refugees who had sought refuge there.
The Continent is contending with the most serious migration crisis since World War II, and the move by Sweden highlights a shifting dynamic.
The leaders also agreed to invite President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey to a summit meeting in Brussels with the bloc’s 28 leaders to discuss a range of issues that could include the country’s long-stalled bid to join the union as well as efforts to help curb migration.
Richer nations in the north that were open to the newcomers are now warning that their resources are limited, even as nations closer to European entry points erect physical barriers along their borders, European Union member states fail to agree on a coherent plan to deal with the crisis, and the bloc struggles to persuade African countries and Turkey to stop migrants from trying to reach Europe in the first place.
Many of the migrants making their way from Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and other nations to Western Europe travel through Turkey. Reaching an accord with Mr. Erdogan and the Turkish government is widely seen as vital to reducing the flow of people through the Balkans and eventually to Germany, Sweden and other rich countries in Northern Europe.
The announcement from Sweden that it would reintroduce border controls came late on Wednesday, after a request from Stockholm this month for other concessions, already granted to Italy and Greece, that would allow the relocation of migrants to other European countries. European Union authorities are still reviewing that request.
With the crisis showing little sign of abating, Donald Tusk, the president of the European Council, the body representing European Union leaders, said failure to secure the bloc’s external borders could tear apart a policy of allowing free movement of people across most of the Continent.
Germany has warned it may not be able to accept some migrants, even from Syria, where a four-year war has displaced hundreds of thousands of people, and said it would take a stricter approach to admitting relatives of refugees.
But dealings with Turkey have been complicated by unease among European leaders about what they see as repressive actions against dissent and freedom of speech in Turkey under Mr. Erdogan’s leadership. As a result, they have been reluctant to grant Mr. Erdogan any concessions in his drive to accelerate membership in the union.
Slovenia on Wednesday began erecting a razor-wire fence along its border with Croatia, and Finland said earlier in the week that it was no longer able to provide new arrivals with “as high-quality reception services as before.”
The need for Europe to limit the number of people leaving Turkey for the Continent has given Mr. Erdogan an opening for a deal in which he would help to provide better conditions for the refugees in Turkey in return for closer relations with Europe.
Finland, warning that it was “prepared to resort to tent and container accommodation,” also cautioned that there were not enough qualified nongovernmental organizations and companies to operate fully fledged reception centers for migrants.
Jean-Claude Juncker, the president of the European Commission, said the €3 billion would not be “money to be given to Turkey, but to help the Syrian refugees in Turkey.”
With European countries increasingly divided over how to address the influx, Donald Tusk, the president of the European Council, warned on Thursday that passport-free travel through most of Europe across the so-called Schengen area could soon be curtailed.
Mr. Erdogan has repeatedly highlighted the burdens Turkey is bearing by having to feed and house so many people.
“The recent developments in Germany, in Sweden, in Slovenia and in other countries all show with utmost clarity the huge pressure member states are facing,” Mr. Tusk said at a news conference in Valletta, Malta, on Thursday, before a meeting of most of the European Union’s 28 leaders. “I have no doubt without effective control of our external borders, the Schengen rules will not survive.”
The money, which would include €500 million from a central European Union budget, should help Europe “conclude our negotiations with Turkey at the special summit” meeting, Mr. Juncker said. But he also acknowledged that the details of raising the remaining €2.5 billion from individual member governments still needed to be negotiated.
That gathering follows a two-day summit meeting with African leaders, who agreed to a deal that included the aid agreement, worth roughly $1.93 billion, aimed at addressing the root causes of irregular migration and displaced persons in Africa.
Mr. Tusk of the European Council, which represents leaders of European Union member states, said he was “99 percent sure” that the summit meeting with Mr. Erdogan would take place at the end of November.
Macky Sall, the president of Senegal, said at the news conference that he was pleased with the outcome of the summit meeting because it addressed a “very controversial and complex subject.” But Mr. Sall said the deal could still “be improved” and the fund “more generously financed.”
Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, said summit meetings between the European Union and Turkey should not become a regular event. But the strains of the migration crisis on Europe were plain to see on Thursday.
There is widespread skepticism that the African plan can meet the goal of reducing the numbers of refugees heading for Germany, Scandinavia and other destinations, because it does not directly address the huge numbers of migrants coming from Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria.
Earlier in the day, Sweden defended its decision to reintroduce border controls as Europe’s leaders also wrapped up an agreement to provide African nations with €1.8 billion intended to speed up the process of returning people to Africa who have not qualified for asylum and to discourage others who would not qualify from migrating.
Many migrants are now coming through Turkey and the western Balkans rather than across the Mediterranean Sea from North Africa.
Macky Sall, the president of Senegal, in West Africa, said the deal could still “be improved” and the fund “more generously financed.”
Speaking earlier in the day, Mr. Lofven said the Swedish authorities had concluded that the large number of migrants meant his country could no longer guarantee the security and control of its borders.
The announcement from Sweden that it would reintroduce border controls came late on Wednesday, after a request earlier this month for similar concessions, already granted to Italy and Greece, that would allow the relocation of migrants to other European countries. The European authorities still are reviewing that request.
“This is not a fence,” Mr. Lofven told reporters on the margins of the summit meeting. “We need to make sure that we have control.”
The Swedish prime minister, Stefan Lofven, framed the issue as a temporary measure by Sweden to maintain order. But the new controls would represent a blow to European policy of allowing free movement of people across most of the bloc’s internal borders.
Mr. Lofven said Sweden had accepted more refugees on a per-capita basis than any other European country, and he said that the border controls were in conformity with European Union rules.
The move was not necessarily a sign that the open-border system in Europe had permanently broken down, Mr. Lofven said, but, “we need another system — that is obvious.”
The move was not necessarily a sign that the open-border system in Europe had permanently broken down, he said, but, “we need another system — that is obvious.”
Germany has warned it may not be able to accept some migrants over the long term, even from Syria, where a four-year war has displaced millions of people. Germany said it would take a stricter approach to admitting the relatives of refugees.
“External borders of the European Union are not yet at all under control so probably, temporarily, for some countries, it is unavoidable,” President Dalia Grybauskaite of Lithuania told reporters at the summit meeting, referring to decisions across Europe to tighten borders.
Slovenia on Wednesday began erecting a razor-wire fence along its border with Croatia, and Finland said earlier in the week that it was no longer able to provide new arrivals with the “high-quality reception services as before.”
Ms. Grybauskaite said the Swedish decision would be discussed Thursday afternoon, when European Union leaders gather for their summit meeting. But the main topic of discussion on Thursday was expected to be reaching an accord with Turkey aimed at curbing migration across its borders.
Finland, warning that it was “prepared to resort to tent and container accommodation,” also cautioned that there were not enough qualified nongovernmental organizations and companies to operate full-fledged reception centers for migrants.
A far-reaching accord with the government in Ankara is widely seen as vital, but European leaders have struggled to reach an agreement with the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
With European countries increasingly divided over how to address the migrant influx, Mr. Tusk, of the European Council, warned earlier on Thursday that passport-free travel through much of Europe across the so-called Schengen area could soon be curtailed.
Mr. Erdogan has indicated his desire for greater concessions in areas like relaxed visa rules for Turks traveling to Europe and a speedier path to Turkey’s eventual membership of the European Union.
“The recent developments in Germany, in Sweden, in Slovenia and in other countries all show with utmost clarity the huge pressure member states are facing,” Mr. Tusk said. “I have no doubt without effective control of our external borders, the Schengen rules will not survive.”
European leaders have also failed to gain traction with their most high-profile effort to tackle the crisis — agreements reached during the summer to relocate 160,000 refugees throughout the Continent. So far, only about 150 refugees have been relocated, with tiny Luxembourg taking the majority of them.
“Migrants really only want to reach four or five countries and, among those, mainly Germany and Sweden,” said Martijn Pluim of the International Center for Migration Policy Development, an international organization based in Vienna.
Mr. Pluim said resettling migrants directly from the Middle East and Africa would be a more manageable policy than waiting for them to reach Europe. That, he said, would reduce smuggling and loss of life, and make the distribution of migrants across Europe more orderly.
