Sweden wants to clear Roma camps

A Swedish government commission is calling for a legal amendment that would allow the authorities to clear the camps set up by Roma from Romania and Bulgaria. In recent years around 30 of these illegal camps have sprung up in Stockholm alone. Is this the right way to put an end to begging on Sweden's streets?

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Sydsvenskan (SE) /

Private property must be protected

Illegal camps must be cleared for the rule of law to prevail, Sydsvenskan is convinced:

“Most beggars on Sweden's streets come from Bulgaria and Romania. But just because they're poor, discriminated against and persecuted doesn't mean they have the right to camp on private property. The law is the same for everyone: that is one of the founding principles of the constitutional state. Private property must be protected, otherwise people will end up taking the law into their own hands. If they doubt that the police and the authorities will help them defend their rights, we are on a slippery slope indeed.”

Dagens Nyheter (SE) /

No solution for poverty

The proposal to clear Roma camps in Sweden may solve the problems of the landowners but it won't eliminate poverty, Dagens Nyheter writes:

“In forcing persecuted groups to relocate once again, the law will only make their lives even harder. The situation of these EU migrants is still unclear. As long as begging on Swedish streets is more profitable for them than the alternatives in their home countries, and as long as we postpone the decision to make the EU migrants' lives even harder with ever more brutal laws, they will continue to come. The landowners may be happy about the new law. But it's as unclear as ever how society should deal with the global poverty that confronts us on a daily basis.”