Nordic countries tackle ‘spillover’ migrant crime from Sweden ━ The European Conservative

The Nordic countries are stepping up their regional cooperation to combat the growing international organised crime gangs in Sweden, following a rise in incidents in neighbouring Norway and Denmark. This was announced by the justice ministers of Stockholm, Copenhagen and Oslo at their joint press conference on Wednesday 21 August.

These efforts will consist of “joint operations and joint patrols”, mainly in Sweden and at the request of the Swedish police, Norwegian Justice Minister Emilie Enger Mehl told media in the Danish capital.

Norway, a non-EU country but part of the Schengen area, is looking to step up regional cooperation after it was recently discovered that “Swedish” migrant gangs are active in every region of the country, with a steadily increasing prevalence of violent crime.

In addition to police officers, Norway, Denmark and Finland are also sending investigators to Sweden to facilitate cross-border knowledge exchange and learn as much as possible about the nature of the problem. The Nordic anti-gang police centre is being set up in Stockholm, where Finnish and Norwegian officers are already stationed, and will be joined by their Danish colleagues in a few weeks.

The operations would not only target gang activity, but also “digital channels that have been used to recruit young people,” Swedish Minister Gunnar Strömmer stressed. He pointed out that 25 of the recent cross-border incidents involved Swedish youths hired by Danish criminals to carry out riskier tasks, such as tackling rival gangs.

The latest incident – ​​a bombing in central Copenhagen carried out by two Swedes – prompted Denmark to consider introducing permanent border controls on the famous Øresund Bridge, which connects the capital to the gang-ridden city of Malmö in southern Sweden.

Although Sweden’s gang problem spreads measurably across its borders, nowhere is the problem as severe in neighbouring countries as within them. Last year, Sweden recorded more than 350 successful or foiled bombings and 363 shooting incidents (including 53 deaths and 109 injuries) – the highest numbers in Europe, in a country that once had the lowest gun crime per capita.

In contrast, the other three Nordic countries together recorded just six fatal shootings in 2023, but they want to stop the problem before it gets out of hand. “The reality now is that not only Denmark, but large parts of the Nordic countries are feeling the consequences of Sweden’s long-term failed immigration and justice policies, and we take that very seriously,” Danish Justice Minister Peter Hummelgaard said last week.

Of course, not only the neighbors, but also Sweden knows that it was their extremely lenient asylum policy that led to the situation. That is why the country’s center-right government has decided to fundamentally reform the system by removing most of the primary incentives that attract economic migrants.

The new policy appears to be successful: in less than two years, Sweden has achieved its first ‘net emigration’ in half a century. This year, more migrants from the Middle East left the country than entered. However, it was later revealed that the spectacular numbers may have been the result of a technical error in the population register.