Johanssen, as quoted by Helsingborgs Dagblad newspaper, said he struck down legislation that would ban begging practices on the streets, but said authorities would criminalize spontaneous camps on the Swedish streets.
Speaking at a news conference, Johanssen described a gap in Swedish legislation which does not prohibit a person from taking advantage of another's begging practice.
"There may be someone who takes a percentage by placing another person in a certain street corner. He may also be taking advantage of someone's debt, for example by organizing your trip to Sweden and then calls back more than cost price," the minister was as quoted as saying by the newspaper.
Johanssen said Sweden will set up joint working groups with Romania, where the majority of street beggars are said to originate, to work out mechanisms to improve conditions for begging migrants on the country’s streets.
In late April, leaders of Sweden’s largest opposition party, the Moderate Party, proposed banning organized begging amid a steep rise in the number of EU migrants.
The proposal followed a survey by Swedish Television News saying that the number of beggars on the Swedish streets doubled over the past year, reaching some 4,000 people.
