Finland criticises Swedish rail firm for no ID checks on refugees

Volunteers distribute food and drinks to migrants who arrived at Malmo train station in Sweden on the morning of September 10, 2015. REUTERS/Ola Torkelsson/TT News Agency

STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - Finland criticised Sweden's state railway company on Thursday for allowing asylum seekers to travel onto Finland and Norway without ID checks, in a sign that tensions over border controls and refugees were spreading cross the Nordics. Thousands of refugees from the Middle East are travelling to the Nordics to seek asylum, especially in Sweden which has one of Europe's most open policies on immigration. Unlike Sweden - which grants automatic permanent residency to Syrians - Finland and Denmark have expressed concerns about the influx of refugees. "It can't be that in Sweden, which is an EU member, a Dublin country and a Schengen country, the supervision would not work as agreed," Interior Minister Petteri Orpo told parliament, according to STT news agency. The Dublin Regulation lays out the responsibilities of member-states in processing asylum applications and the Schengen agreement regulates travel within the EU. Denmark on Thursday allowed refugees to move freely through its territory to Sweden after days of chaos when authorities closed ferry services and a motorway link with Germany in an attempt to stem an inflow of thousands of asylum seekers. A spokesman for the Swedish railway company SJ said they had changed the rules temporarily so that IDs were not checked, to allow travel for refugees. Before, traveling without an ID required a more expensive ticket. (Reporting by Daniel Dickson; Editing by Alistair Scrutton)