When I took the train from Copenhagen to Malmö before Christmas, police dutifully entered the regional Öresund train on the first stop in Sweden, Hyllie station. Despite the regular controls, the passport checks were swift and casual and the police were friendly and not the least threatening. Since 4 January, regional trains travelling directly between Denmark and Sweden have been disrupted and replaced with local trains, forcing passengers not merely to switch trains at the border but also to go through ID checks that extend the travelling time up to an hour. The current situation with the border checks still feels surreal, but I believe that most citizens on either side do not consider it a permanent solution.

Nobody wants to be the first one to put an end to the openness we take so much pride in. But the already strained housing problem and other economic issues in the country are visibly affecting the public. As much as we would like to be proud of being an open and welcoming society to the rest of the world, internally we are struggling with the results of this openness.

There is a housing shortage in Sweden in general, which has caused house prices to rise significantly in the past five years. Debts are high on an individual level in the country, forcing people to rethink their financial situation. Sweden is just as much affected by the global financial crisis as anyone else. The new Swedish government is aiming to achieve the lowest unemployment rate in Europe by 2020, an initiative which has most likely been abandoned now, with new challenges being prioritised. This raises concerns that unemployment, especially among the young and immigrant populations, will not improve.