Border control at Danish borders for the next 10 days as of 12:00 today 4 January 2016

Danish Prime Minister, Lars Løkke Rasmussen, has announced today at his 12:00 o’clock press meeting that the Danish Government reinstates border control for 10 days at the Danish borders to Germany. He does so to prevent more asylum seekers from coming to Denmark – fearing that if asylum seekers can no longer enter Sweden, if they do not have valid ID papers, they will seek asylum in Denmark.

By Bente D. Knudsen Picture: PR VisitDenmark

The new Swedish regulations requiring transport companies to secure that their passengers are carrying valid ID papers, in the form of passports or driver’s licences, has made the Danish government reinstate temporary border control at the Danish – German borders. This means the borders to Germany in Jutland and the ferry lines at Rødby ( Rødby-Puttgarden) and Gedser ( Gedser-Rostock).

The border control will be at the discretion of the police, meaning that they will evaluate which cars and busses they will check. In practical terms this means that everyone will not be stopped, but must pass the border control at slow speed and await the signal from the police to stop or not.

It does mean that carrying a valid passport is now mandatory to ensure crossing the border to Denmark.

Rettidig omhu

The term used by Prime Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen, rettidig omhu, is to take care of Denmark as he calls it, taking measures before the problem escalates with more asylum seekers wanting to stay in Denmark.

The ten day border control has not yet been commented by the German government. However, the border control is different from the transport company responsibility measure now enforced by the Swedish government.

The Danish government has passed legislation enabling them to also enforce this measure in Denmark, but has so far decided not to put it to use. At the press meeting Lars Løkke Rasmussen stated that as there is no agreement with the German transport authorities, the Deutsche Bahn, putting such a measure in use would mean that no trains or busses from Germany would pass through to Denmark. This is because they have said that they would not enforce the check in the trains and busses from Germany. Also the ferry boat companies at Rødby and Gedser have lobbied against enforcing the measure.

More or less asylum seekers

No one seems to know at this moment what the Swedish measure will mean in terms of more asylum seekers to Denmark. Since midnight the fourth of January the most problems at Kastrup train station seems to have been with foreign nationals from the EU travelling without a valid passport but with national identity papers that have not been accepted by the security company hired by DSB to enforce the ID check.