Sweden says no to the EU’s commitments on the relocation of asylum
Sweden will not make any promises to relocate asylum seekers under a French-inspired EU deal because it says there is no legal basis for it.
“It is not possible for our government to commit to something that does not have a clear legal basis,” says Lars Danielsson, Sweden’s EU ambassador.
“So it’s more of a technical reason that we haven’t been able to so far,” he said. But he also noted that migration is an issue “where you can lose or win elections.”
On the question of whether the Swedish EU presidency intends to work for more relocations during so-called EU solidarity mechanism, he did not answer.
The mechanism, which was launched in the summer, handled around 8,000 relocation promises in 11 EU states plus Norway and Liechtenstein.
Only around 117 people have been relocated within the framework of the system. Greece recently appealed for another 400 to be relocated, following a rescue south of Crete.
“It’s clear that we need to step up enforcement,” Ylva Johannson, the EU’s home affairs commissioner, said earlier this week. The Commission says it is working with member states to ensure the pledges are delivered.
“We will revise standard procedures to speed up relocations and we will look at financial contributions being effectively matched,” she said.
But Sweden’s technical and legal concerns about the plan to distribute arriving asylum seekers on European shores are likely also firmly rooted in the country’s domestic politics.
Its new government is a coalition of mainstream parties plus the Sweden Democrats, a nationalist party with roots in the Swedish neo-Nazi movement. Despite the fact that the Sweden Democrats have no ministers, they managed to gain an advantage in terms of policy focus and direction.
In October, the government presented a 63-page platform agreement, which devotes a third to immigration and integration.
The proposals include reducing the rights of asylum seekers as far as is legally possible, while at the same time increasing police “stop and frisk” body searches.
It has also introduced some other novelties, including the possibility of revoking residence permits on the grounds of non-criminal social “abuse”.
In October, Lisa Pelling, a Swedish political scientist, described these news as equivocal to the creation of “a moral police”.