Denmark: Controversial Law Re-Introduces Border Control  · Global Voices
Maria Grabowski

Danish nationalist right wing party, The Danish People’s Party (Dansk  Folkeparti/DF), recently announced the re-introduction of controls at the country's borders with Germany and Sweden. The centre-right minority  government in Copenhagen capitulated and the proposal went through.
The  Danish decision came as a surprise to many because it was taken only  few hours before an emergency European Union (EU) meeting focused on immigration and the Schengen Agreement.  The treaty was signed in 1985 and in 2001 Denmark  decommissioned its border control at the German border.
Borderline between Sweden and Denmark on the Øresunds Bridge. Image by Flickr user mollenborg.com (CC BY 2.0).
The border-free  region counts more than 22 EU countries plus Switzerland, Liechtenstein,  Norway and Iceland. It goes from Portugal to Russia's borders on the  Baltic, and from Reykjavik to Turkey's border with Greece.
There  were calls in the European Parliament to cut Denmark out of the  Schengen regime in light of the new border policy. But the Danish government has promised that border and  customs checks will not extend to passport controls, and that this  remains compliant with Schengen.
The European Commission is now working to  find out whether Denmark complies with international law. Meanwhile the  German government has protested that the open border should not be sacrificed for domestic political reasons [da] and Sweden has called it a scandal.
Tight anti-immigration policy
Logo from the Facebook page ‘What about shutting your ass instead of shutting the borders’.
Denmark  has developed extremely tight anti-immigration laws within the last ten years and this increasing far-right discourse seem to have spread  across the EU – to Italy, France and the Netherlands.
It might  also have been triggered by a fear for the migrant consequences of the Arab Spring protests earlier this year.
A Facebook group called ‘Border Police Back in Denmark’  (Grænsepoliti tilbage i DK) [da] has 2,324 members and has supported the  DF border initiative with comments such as “Now we can sleep soundly a night”.
‘What about shutting your ass instead of shutting the borders’  (Hvad med at lukke røven i stedet for at lukke grænserne) [da] is the  name of another Facebook group – one against the proposal – which has 6,263 members and counting.
Here is some of the unsatisfied comments from Facebook and Twitter:
Lars Rosgaard: Symbolpolitik er desværre den eneste form for politik, der i  øjeblikket praktiseres i DK
Lena Olsen: Valgflæsk for DF (…). Jeg er bare så træt af de tosser
Jakob Ellekjær: Det der ødelægger det her land, er dem der styrer det.
@trinemaria: @umbraco Det er SÅ dumt med den grænsekontrol at jeg seriøst overvejer ikke at vende tilbage, hvis jeg slipper igennem!