Denmark should not rule out the possibility of reinstating border checks on the Øresund Bridge that connects Copenhagen with Malmö, Sweden’s third-largest city, Danish Justice Minister Peter Hummelgaard said on Wednesday, August 7th. His statement followed the arrest of two “Swedish” nationals in relation to an explosion in the capital a day prior.
The fact that there’s a renewed discussion about reintroducing border checks between two EU members belonging to the Schengen area proves the point of the conservative parties in Brussels, who have long been saying that unchecked immigration crossing the EU’s external borders will eventually be the death of the bloc’s precious free movement zone.
The 24-year-old perpetrators of Tuesday’s Copenhagen attack, a man and a woman, are believed to have entered the country by crossing the Øresund Bridge before throwing some kind of explosive device into a kiosk in Østerbro, downtown Copenhagen. Luckily, no one was wounded in the incident and the perpetrators were quickly arrested. The police refused to give any further information about them, including whether they had Swedish citizenship or not.
The incident was not an isolated case. The bombing was the fourth case in less than a week involving armed perpetrators from across the strait, with ‘Swedish youth’ involved in three separate shootings in Copenhagen last weekend.
The Danish government can no longer leave the increasing involvement of migrants from Sweden in organized crime and gang activity within Denmark unaddressed, describing the situation as a “huge challenge” it intends to address shortly.
While stressing that there is currently no evidence to suggest border controls would have prevented the attacks, Hummelgaard emphasized that all options must remain on the table. Sweden already carries out spot checks at its end of the bridge, screening people coming from the other direction.
At the same time, the justice minister added that it must be a temporary measure until Denmark can implement tougher law enforcement practices, similar to those of Sweden, which has been grappling with the problem for much longer.
“All these incidents reflect the fact that there are currently conflicts in criminal circles on both sides of the Øresund, where it is quite obvious that Sweden is able to use completely different methods than we have seen so far in Denmark due to a corrupt criminal culture on the other side of the strait,” Hummelgaard explained.
Sweden registered over 350 successful or thwarted bombings last year, an 84% increase from 2022, with no sign of this trend reversing in the near future. 2023 also saw 363 shooting incidents (including 53 fatalities and 109 woundings), which is a slight decrease from the nearly 400 registered in 2022. The vast majority of these incidents were related to fighting between criminal street gangs of migrant background, but civilians are caught in the crossfire as well.
As it always exercised a much tougher immigration policy than its northeastern neighbor, Denmark has so far been spared from having to deal with a similar situation. However, the number of incidents on Danish soil began to ramp up recently, in part due to Swedish police efforts to clean up the most gang-ridden neighborhoods in nearby Malmö. There have been “only” 11 cases involving armed migrants from Sweden in Denmark in the past year—including shootings and bombings, some fatal—but that’s already enough for Copenhagen to start thinking about immediate solutions.
Hummelgaard is meeting with the national police commissioner and the head of the National Special Crime Unit in the coming days to discuss the path forward and promised to build a “permanent and effective intelligence cooperation” with Swedish authorities by permanently stationing a Danish officer on the other side of Øresund.
