`Love Bridge' Fuels Anti-Immigrant Backlash on Swedish Border

[Aptrgangr]

`Love Bridge' Fuels Anti-Immigrant Backlash on Swedish Border

By Charles Goldsmith and Jonas Bergman

Nov. 8 (Bloomberg) -- Every day, about 1,000 Danes leave their foreign-born spouses in Sweden and cross the ``Love Bridge'' to jobs in Denmark, where immigration laws prevent their husbands and wives from settling.

The Oresund Bridge linking the two nations has become a flashpoint in the debate over Sweden's open border. The Sweden Democrats tripled their support in two cities near the span in September elections after demanding tighter immigration laws.
``When I look over the bridge, it's like looking over the Berlin Wall,'' says Mattias Karlsson, a party spokesman. ``Denmark has much more rigid laws on foreigners, and that's steering a lot of asylum seekers and foreigners toward Sweden.''
European Union politicians are struggling to assimilate overseas-born residents while toughening entry requirements for outsiders. That may leave Sweden as one of the few EU nations to welcome Romanian and Bulgarian workers when the trade bloc expands to 27 members in January.
The Paris suburbs were rocked last year by rioting among Muslim youths that resulted in about 3,000 arrests. Italian and Spanish authorities are trying to stem the tide of Africans who arrive in makeshift boats. The U.K. government is debating ways to reduce the isolation of its own Muslim community after alleged terror plots that police say were planned by British citizens.

Closing the Door
Sweden, Ireland and the U.K. were the only western European nations that didn't put restrictions on workers from the 10 countries that joined the EU in 2004.
Britain and Ireland said Oct. 24 they would reverse open- door labor policies and limit migration from Bulgaria and Romania. In both countries, jobseekers will be required to obtain work permits before going to work.
Resisting the trend, Sweden's new four-party government says it may ease rules for overseas workers to head off possible shortages of unskilled labor in a market with a 4.9 percent jobless rate.
Sweden's unemployment rate may be more than twice the official figure because government statistics don't count people on early retirement and students looking for work, says the Swedish Confederation of Enterprise. The average rate in the 25- nation EU was 8 percent at the end of September.
Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt said Oct. 19 at an EU meeting in Finland that Romanians and Bulgarians would be free to seek work in Sweden, though a formal decision hasn't been announced.
The government's new minister for integration, Burundi-born Nyamko Sabuni, says immigrants have helped fund Swedish social- welfare programs. The country's birthrate has declined to an average of 1.75 children per woman in 2004 from 2.5 children in the 1960s.

Social Support
``We have to ask ourselves what kind of welfare system we would have today if we hadn't had immigrants,'' says Sabuni, who moved to Sweden when she was 12.
Sweden's tradition of welcoming outsiders dates back to the years after World War II, when economic expansion triggered demand for immigrant labor. The country now has 1.1 million foreign-born residents in a population of 9 million.
Political opponents say the influx of immigrants only exacerbates existing tensions in Swedish society.
``It's a big problem if Sweden goes its own way,'' says Bjoern Soeder, party secretary of the Sweden Democrats. ``We have serious problems with different cultural and ethnic groups which have built societies within the society.''

Landskrona and Trelleborg
The Sweden Democrats doubled their share of the national vote in the Sept. 17 elections to 2.9 percent, qualifying for future election funding. The party also tripled the number of seats it holds on the city councils of Landskrona and Trelleborg, close to the Oresund Bridge.
The party aims to get 10 percent of the national vote in the next election that will take place in 2010, Soeder says. The Sweden Democrats call for restrictions on foreign workers, including those from Romania and Bulgaria, and say that immigrants must adapt to Swedish culture.
Denmark tightened its laws after immigration rose 85 percent from 1980 to 2001. The ability of foreign-born spouses to gain residence rights was debated during the 2001 election, when voters ousted the Social Democrats in favor of a minority government that relies on the anti-immigrant Danish People's Party to pass legislation.
The next year, Denmark rescinded a citizen's automatic right to bring a spouse into the country, restricted newcomers' ability to obtain full welfare benefits for seven years and required those applying for residency to pass a Danish language test.
Since then, thousands of Danes have relocated to neighboring Sweden and now commute to jobs in Denmark over the Oresund Bridge and tunnel. The 16-kilometer (10-mile) link, which spans the strait that separates the two countries, was dubbed the ``Love Bridge'' soon after it opened in 2000.

Marriage Without Borders
Overseas-born residents account for 8.7 percent of Denmark's 5.4 million people, according to the government statistics agency.
In Sweden, the foreign-born make up 12.4 percent of the population, compared with 9.2 percent in 1990 and 4 percent in 1960, Statistics Sweden says.
Many have settled in Malmoe, a city of 274,000 that's a 35- minute train ride from Copenhagen via the Love Bridge. The number of Danes living in Malmoe had almost doubled since 2000 to 6,500 as of Jan. 1, according to the statistics agency.
``I expect that in two or three years there will be a Danish school in Malmoe,'' says Nanna Hvedstrup, 26, a Dane who works as an insurance adjuster in Copenhagen and lives in Malmoe with her New Zealand-born husband. She's part of a 1,200-member cross- border support group called Marriage Without Borders, which calls for Denmark to ease restrictions on immigration.

`A Catastrophe'
Twenty miles north of Malmoe, immigrants are changing political attitudes in Landskrona, a city of 40,000 people.
The local economy ran aground in the 1980s, when the city's shipyard shut down and the clothes-making industry collapsed. One former shipbuilding area is now piled high with rusting scrap metal bound for Denmark, while another is used to repair railroad freight cars.
``It was a catastrophe for the town,'' says Jan Nilson, Landskrona's strategy officer. ``Both sectors went totally down within a couple of years in the 1970s and 1980s, and we still live with the aftermath.''
New arrivals in the 1990s, many from Kosovo and other parts of the former Yugoslavia, moved into the abandoned downtown apartments of former shipbuilders.

Isolation, Crime
People with non-Swedish ethnic backgrounds now comprise 42 percent of the city center's 8,000 residents, and about 20 percent of Landskrona's overall population, according to Nilson. In most European cities, the immigrant population resides in suburban areas.
``The total number of immigrants must be restricted,'' says Nicklas Kvist, 33, a taxi driver in Landskrona, who backed the Sweden Democrats in local elections.
Reported violent crimes rose 35 percent in Landskrona from 2000 through 2005, according to the National Council for Crime Prevention. Due to budget restraints, the police station in central Landskrona is shuttered on weekends. Locals must telephone a police station in Helsingborg, 12 miles away.
``The problem in Landskrona is that people feel insecure in the area of the town where they want to be, the center of the city,'' Nilson says. ``Immigration is very visible here.''
Much of the tension in Landskrona can be traced to the lack of interaction between communities, says Umran Gulec, 20, a Turkish Kurd who runs a pizzeria.
``The Swedish people won't talk with the others, only with the Swedish,'' he says. ``The Swedish people only drive Volvos and Saabs.''
Unemployment in Landskrona was 7.6 percent in September, according to the National Labor Market Board.

Exiled
Reinfeldt's government has pledged to step up efforts to persuade private employers to boost employment. Among measures in the budget announced Oct. 16 were the elimination of payroll taxes for companies hiring the unemployed, an expanded program to teach Swedish to immigrants and increased grants to municipalities to absorb refugees.
Those measures will do little to change the fortunes of Sweden-based Danes, such as Morten Frederiksen, who say they are exiled from their own country. The 41-year-old Danish graphic designer lives in Malmoe with his Chinese-born wife, Lina Meng.
``I work in Denmark, I pay taxes in Denmark and I've basically been expelled from Denmark for marrying the wrong girl,'' Frederiksen says. ``Or so the government says.''

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?p...d=a4l9dsYOR42g