GUWonder

It's Arctic winter and Storskog having a drop to zero is in large part due to weather and Russia's recent change in legal position on a 2007 agreement between the two countries. But still, Storskog has not been and will not be the only point crossed by refugees across this border. And once the refugees get their timing right, they won't be as readily re-admissible to Russia. Russia still wants them returned at the legal border crossings when Russia considers them now re-admissible.

FredAnderssen

My father cancelled a trip to Southern Sweden this January due to the checks at the border. He's old and is already stressed by the frenetic pace of the trains out of CPH. I will suggest a trip to GOT to get around the mess. It will be more of a hassle for me to pick him up there, but I will certainly do all I can to make the trip manageable for him.

GUWonder

This indeed makes it more sensible for some to consider flying and other things as a substitute for more environmentally-friendly and more cost-effective rail travel for passengers going from Denmark to Sweden via the bridge.

Easier to schedule on-time meetings in Copenhagen than in southern Sweden when these checks are disrupting travel times into Sweden.

:D!

What's the situation with ferries from Helsingor to Helsingfors?

GUWonder

You mean Helsingor (DK) to Helsingborg (SE)? ID checks there too. Way less disrupted by the ID checks in my limited experience there than if taking the bridge from DK to SE.

:D!

Yes I did indeed mean Helsingborg. When you say less disrupted, is that just because there aren't so many people going that route as opposed to the bridge?

Are the ID checks just some policeman looking at your ID, or are they going to be like formal points of entry with buildings, desks and passport scanners?

GUWonder

Mostly because the volumes are low and the boarding process was already more channeled well before this year.

The ID checks by government employees are mostly just police glancing at the ID.

Next week, some changes come into play:

DSB (Danish rail) and its contractors start carrying out the checks from next Monday on Track 1 at CPH. They will have 5 control areas with up to 34 ID control gates.

The cost for just CPH ID checks of Swedish-bound passengers will be about $1.3 million to $4.5 million dollars per month. And DSB and Skanetrafiken are going to raise prices to charge bridge commuters more since they are eating the cost otherwise.

GUWonder

The company that owns the HH ferry doing some of the Denmark-Sweden ferry crossings is going to run up its lawyers' billable hours to try to get the Swedish government off its back for these ID checks. The company lawyers are claiming that the Swedish government has undermined competition laws (in the Swedish government's interests of the Oresundsbro/bridge in which the Swedish government has ownership interests) and the Schengen rules.

It will be interesting to see how this turns out. I hope the company pursues it up to relevant court ruling whereby there is no negotiated settlement, but just a clear indication of what is and is not lawful behavior on the part of the government.

FredAnderssen

An article in Sydöstran, a local newspaper in Blekinge, estimates the costs of the new controls at 1 million Swedish crowns PER DAY. At today's exchange rate, that's about $120,000. The same article states that a "pendelkort" for a man they interviewed went up by 400 Swedish crowns. I'm not sure how those cards work, but GUWonder could probably inform us about the time period for which these cards are purchased.

The cognitive dissonance of this particular traveler is staggering: He doesn't feel that there is a need to close the doors to the immigrants, but in almost the same breath complains of the increased price of the "pendelkort." Many Swedes really can't seem to grasp that the costs associated with inviting nearly 200,000 jobless immigrants into Sweden has to be made-up somewhere.

GUWonder

The transport operators' ticket prices are not currently a direct product of the national governments' migration policies, so I'm not sure I would call that traveler's position one of cognitive dissonance.

Skanetrafiken, as a prime example, was already planning to hike prices for the coming year even before the refugee flows skyrocketed this year. They've been on cost-cutting and revenue-hiking hunts for at least the past four years.

I find it sort of amusing that these ID checks are going to be increasingly done by non-police actors in Denmark since the excuse for the checks isn't there like it used to be since the large groups of refugees in Denmark attempting to or awaiting to permanently settle in Sweden just aren't there like they used to be. And so the work of the Swedish border police for Danish-originating train traffic is mostly just catching persons who are not going to make for a legally strong case of "human trafficking" against the rail operators. Court: "you want us to fine the Danes and Swedes for transporting a Swede to Sweden whom you found in Sweden?".

In the meantime the Swedish police will still be working the car/bus/truck traffic on the bridge, since that isn't being outsourced. It will be interesting to see if DSB and Skanetrafiken decide to follow in the footsteps of the owners of HH Ferry and pursue litigation against the Swedish state.

:D!

The actions of the Swedish government leading to the building of the fence at CPH indicate that they want these controls to be permanent, whereas I thought these intra-Schengen border checks were meant to be temporary in response to a crisis. Is there any indication of when they might be relaxed or ended, or do people think they will stay for at least all of 2016?

GUWonder

The current Swedish government wanted and got the Swedish law set up for controls for three years. The constituents of the prior Swedish government mainly wanted the law to allow for these controls for no more than 6 months at a time absent a parliamentary re-authorization. The outside party that has never been part of national government in Sweden wanted the law to allow for these checks for somewhere between 3 years and de facto perpetuity. What a clown show.

The clown show in the cross-border intra-Schengen travel domain is likely to have some more scenes play out even beyond the Danish-Swedish border in 2016.

I am not sure how long hotels in the region are going to be making money housing border control police, but the dynamic of what's been going on had been good business for some hoteliers.

GUWonder

The latest estimate is that these ID checks are going to add 30 minutes on average to the commute that has otherwise typically taken 40 minutes for Danish-Swedish commuting passengers using the trains.

Each working day, 27,000 additional passenger commuting hours due to this? That's a lot of time/money wasted.

tsastor

Has a fast track for commuters been under discussion?

GUWonder

Anything of that sort would not only be more expensive, it would also be rather easily circumvented. Or are you talking about an EU/EEA/EFTA line and a separate non-EU/EEA/EFTA line? The vast majority of daily commuters on this route would still be citizens of EU/EEA/EFTA countries.