Sweden’s Eurosceptics want EU-wide prisoner redistribution

7 months ago 27

The new Swedish Eurosceptic list for the European elections, Folklistan, led by MEP Sara Skyttedal (EPP), intends to push for an EU directive to ease sending convicts to serve their sentences in other EU countries’ prisons.

On Tuesday, Skyttedal and the former Swedish Social Democrat lawmaker Jan Emanuel presented the newest proposal of her new Eurosceptic EU list outside Täby prison, North of Stockholm, ahead of the EU elections in June to promote the transfer of prisoners across the bloc.

“We propose a new EU directive to enforce sentences in and send prisoners to other EU countries,” Skyttedal said, adding that she wants to use her networks in Brussels to get the issue on the agenda.

With the help of the EU, the idea is to map vacant prison places in other member states that could be rented out and distribute them to countries like Sweden with space shortages.

Emanuel continued by stating that the introduction of such a system has the potential to tackle the rise in gang violence in Sweden, as gang criminals could be placed far away from their gangs.

However, the European Commission, not the European Parliament, can propose directives, so it is unclear how the proposal would progress.

Skyttedal left the Christian Democrats in February, as the party dropped her as its top candidate for the EU elections after it became public that she had applied for a job with the far-right Sweden Democrats (ECR).

Two weeks ago, she founded her own movement, which she describes as an “electoral coalition” of people from different political backgrounds in Swedish politics who are all “tired of being whipped by harsh party whips”.

Skyttedal’s new list is inspired by the June List, a short-lived Swedish Eurosceptic party founded in 2004 that won three seats in the European Parliament that year.

(Charles Szumski | Euractiv.com)