Douglas Carswell

When Sweden reimposes border controls, the European project isn't working

Yesterday Sweden – the poster nation for open-door immigration – reintroduced border controls, in defiance of the Schengen Agreement. Swedish ministers say the volume of migrants entering the country has left them no choice. Austria, Germany, and France have already done the same. When even Europe's overtly integrationist states are placing national interest above federalism, the European project is in serious trouble.

Sweden claims the border checks are "temporary." But when they effectively abandoned the Scandinavian currency union, they said the same thing. That was a hundred years ago.

In fact, Euro elites think Schengen may be unsustainable. "Saving Schengen is a race against time," warns European Council president, Donald Tusk. "If we do not find a European solution for the migration crisis... then Schengen's dead," panics Luxembourg's foreign minister.

Yet the migrant crisis has shown that there can be no European solution, because European countries don't have a common interest or outlook. Sweden and Germany blame everyone else for not taking their "fair" share of migrants. But other countries don't see why they should pick up the tab for unilateral decisions to accept a million people taken in Stockholm and Berlin. Hungary, for one, refuses to be shamed into accepting any.

If anything, Sweden and Germany are now following Hungary's lead. Angela Merkel's popularity has plummeted as her immigration policy descends into chaos. Sweden's governing socialists are looking over their shoulders at the insurgent, Eurosceptic, and electorally successful Sweden Democrats. Swedes are increasingly concerned about social breakdown in Malmö and elsewhere, which many see as the result of mass immigration.

The gradual collapse of Schengen must inform our debate on the EU in Britain. Europhiles talk about staying in the EU as if it is static. But in reality the EU is in flux. Euro-elites – as usual - are pushing for more integration, but nation states are increasingly pulling in the other direction. Come what may, the status quo is over.

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