Following a report from Stockholm’s immigration investigator Kirsi Laakso Utvik, the conservative coalition government of Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson’s Moderates and the right-wing populist Sweden Democrats said that by June of next year, becoming a Swedish citizen will become more difficult.
One of the chief measures set to come into force will be increasing the years lived in the country before being eligible to apply for citizenship, from the current standard of five years to eight, Swedish daily Aftonbladet reports.
Additionally, the government is planning on introducing a requirement for monetary self-sufficiency as well as “honest way of life” mandates, which will include prohibition against applicants with criminal records or large debts, both in Sweden and abroad, according to The Times.
Migration Minister Johan Forssell said upon the announcement that “becoming a Swedish citizen should mean something.”
“It should be something to strive for, it should be proof that you work and contribute to society. Something you deserve, quite simply,” he said.
While the government did not take up the suggestion from the coalition partner Sweden Democrats to require a “declaration of loyalty to the nation” upon taking the oath of citizenship, the populist party said that it was satisfied for now with the outcome, saying that requirements on income were the most important measure to them.
The move to restrict citizenship comes amid a broader effort to clamp down on immigration by the conservative-populist government in Sweden, which swept to power in 2022 amid growing realisation of the error that was the decision in 2015 to open the floodgates to mass migration.
Sweden, which was broadly a homogeneous society for centuries, saw radical changes as a result of the open borders agenda of the former leftist government, with a staggering one in five residents of the country now being born abroad.
The flooding of the country with foreigners has coincided with a drastic increase in crime, with migrant and foreign-operated gangs wreaking havoc across Sweden and in neighbouring countries like Denmark. In contrast to its former reputation as one of the safest countries in the world, Sweden has now become fraught with criminality.
According to a study from Sweden’s Lund University in 2023, the Nordic nation has become the “bombing capital of Europe,” with explosives being detonated frequently as a result of gang warfare. The university noted that Sweden ranked only behind Mexico in terms of the number of explosive attacks.
The failures of the multicultural experiment have not gone unnoticed, however, and the right-wing government in Stockholm has, over the past two years, taken measures to reverse course, including paying migrants to return to their homelands.
Additionally, Stockholm has been cracking down on the influx of alleged asylum seekers. This week, it was announced that last year, just 6,250 asylum-related residence permits were handed out in Sweden, the lowest number since 1985. The number of asylum seekers that entered the country also declined last year to a near-30-year low of 9,645.
Migration Minister Forssell hailed the decrease, saying that it came as a result of government restrictions, and a growing awareness globally that Sweden is no longer an open borders nation. However, he said: “I think it needs to continue decreasing. The changes we have taken need to be kept in place over time.”
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