Sweden's migration agency said Thursday that the country is being overwhelmed by a record number of asylum seekers and will have to make across-the-board spending cuts and raise borrowing to settle as many as 190,000 refugees this year who are fleeing war in countries like Syria. Some 170,000 more refugees are expected to arrive in 2016.
To help settle the refugees, Sweden will need an extra 60 billion kronor ($7 billion) in 2016 and about 70 billion kronor ($8.2 billion) each year through 2019, the Swedish Migration Agency said, reported Bloomberg.
"Clearly, the budget shortfall is going to be bigger this year than in our most recent forecast," Swedish Finance Magdalena Andersson told reporters, according to Reuters. "It is going to take longer for us to get back to balanced public finances. It is also going to mean that we are going to need to borrow money."
The government previously set aside about 4 percent of its overall budget - about 40 billion kronors - to be used for integrating asylum seekers in 2016, but the figures were based on a prediction that only 74,000 people would be seeking asylum in Sweden.
Sweden has become one of the main destinations for people fleeing the civil war in Syria, as Sweden's generous asylum rules provide Syrians automatic permanent residency. A record 100,000 people have sought refuge in the Nordic country so far in 2015 and over 10,000 arrived in the past week alone, according Reuters. People fleeing war in Iraq, Afghanistan and Africa have also sought shelter in the country.
"We have seen pictures of people who are literally walking from Greece across the Balkans to Germany and on to Sweden," Anders Danielsson, head of the Migration Agency, told reporters. "Last night, all [sic] the our places were full."
By the end of the year, the Migration Agency estimated Sweden will be lacking adequate accommodation for 25,000 to 45,000 asylum seekers, meaning tens of thousands could be forced to spend the cold winter in heated tents, according to Reuters.
