As the top of a busy yr approaches – one which saw Russia invade Ukraine in February and spark a war showing few signs of ending – a migration crisis is brewing across Europe.
Countries within the European Union received nearly 100,000 asylum applications in October, which was its highest monthly total in six years and even exceeded the numbers from several months throughout the refugee crisis of 2015 and 2016, in keeping with the union’s asylum agency. The October total doesn’t even include the tens of millions of Ukrainians who’ve fled the war thus far.
But one EU country traditionally welcoming of immigrants is hatching plans that may make immigration and integration there more difficult moving forward.
In October, Sweden’s recent government coalition announced an agreement that features broad proposals aimed toward decreasing the quantity of immigrants brought into the country, a dramatic shift in precedent for a rustic long-known to be welcoming to non-citizens in search of a greater life. Experts say while it’s too early to know the way the plans will really impact migration, the probabilities are concerning.
“The final approach is to lower the standards as a way to make Sweden less attractive as a destination,” says Bernd Parusel, a senior researcher on the Swedish Institute for European Policy Studies.
Analysts argue this push began when the Sweden Democrats, a far-right political party, made big gains within the country’s September parliamentary elections and, in consequence, gathered more political influence. In truth, the party’s share of power has “been growing in each election,” in keeping with Siddartha Aradhya, a postdoctoral researcher at Stockholm University.
Then got here October’s Tidö Agreement, which lays out the policy priorities of the Sweden Democrats and three other governing parties: the Moderate Party, Christian Democrats and Liberals. While only one component of the coalition’s broader plans, the proposals related to modifying migration law are wide-ranging. The coalition hopes to make conditions and requirements for family reunification, labor immigration and Swedish citizenship more strict. Even the country’s asylum reception laws “might be adapted to be sure that it will not be more generous than is required of any member state under EU law.” The package is “very comprehensive,” says Parusel, who notes that about 19 pages of the 62-page agreement document are dedicated to asylum, migration and integration.
“Immigration to Sweden has been unsustainable,” reads a statement by recent Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson of the center-right Moderate Party, delivered in October to the country’s legislative body, the Riksdag. “This government’s message is that this cannot proceed. A paradigm shift is now going down in Swedish migration policy.”
Sweden’s Crown Princess Victoria and King Carl Gustaf, within the background at center of table, sit with incoming Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson, center right, and Speaker of the Swedish parliament Andreas Norlen, center left, throughout the change of presidency council on the Royal Palace in Stockholm on Oct. 18, 2022.(Jessica Gow/TT News Agency via AP)
Sweden’s evolving stance on immigration has actually been several years within the making, each polling data and insights from experts show. Until recently, especially within the Nineties and 2000s, the country embraced more open and generous asylum and immigration policies as other European countries were becoming stricter, in keeping with evaluation by the Brookings Institution, a public policy organization based in Washington, D.C. Sweden also took in additional people per capita than every other European Union country throughout the 2015 refugee crisis, as reported by Reuters.
But evaluation from U.S. News & World Report’s Best Countries survey indicates a representative sample of Swedes have been wary of immigration since at the very least 2018. Asked whether or not they agree with the statement, “My country must be more open to immigration,” only between 30-40% of Swedish respondents did so over a five-year range starting that yr. While the share of agreement rose from about 36% in 2021 to just about 42% in 2022, the latter share was among the many lowest of European countries surveyed. The survey is an element of an annual perception-based rating of nations that this yr was based on responses from greater than 17,000 people in regions spanning the world.
Parusel points to other opinion polls indicating the Swedish public has turn out to be “more skeptical” of immigration, particularly since 2015, when 1000’s of individuals from Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq left their war-torn countries for Europe.
“I’m sure that is probably the straw that broke the camel’s back for many individuals,” Aradhya says. “Up until that time, Finns were the most important immigrant group in Sweden and after (late 2015) onward, it is the Syrian population that became the most important foreign-born population in Sweden. This was a momentous shift in that perspective.”
Sweden is already scaling back its immigration policies. The country will not be among the many 10 which can be hosting essentially the most Ukrainian refugees, in keeping with one other Brookings Institution piece. And the Swedish government has proposed admitting a quota of only 900 total refugees in 2023, after allowing at the very least 5,000 annually since 2018, the Swedish Migration Agency notes. More recently, the Parliament voted to extend the salary requirement for labor migrants in an effort to tighten the principles.
This and the opposite sweeping proposals from the coalition have troubling implications for each immigrants in Sweden and displaced people hoping to search out a shelter there, experts worry.
For instance, the policy that will make family reunification tougher will hurt immigrants inside Sweden who’re already “prone to be scarred” from experiences back home, Aradhya notes. There may be a “signal effect” brought on by the proposed measures too, in keeping with Parusel, who says Sweden could turn out to be “perceived as less welcoming – as more, perhaps, hostile to refugees,” which might impact each the individuals who wish to pursue shelter within the country and the immigrants which can be already there.
On the same note, there are the problems around how migration is discussed within the country, especially by followers of the Sweden Democrats. Specifically, there was a “kind of merging of migration and crime in discourse” regardless that there may be “no kind of research showing that there exists such a causal type of relationship,” says Annika Lindberg, a postdoctoral researcher on the University of Gothenburg’s School of Global Studies. In 2017, for instance, Sweden’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs needed to distribute a press release providing facts and context to combat the dissemination of “simplistic and infrequently inaccurate details about migration, integration and crime” within the country.
But this linkage has continued. Even former Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson, of the center-left Social Democrats, said in August that the country’s failure to integrate immigrants has led to parallel societies and gang violence, in keeping with Reuters.
The “radical” anti-immigration policies the brand new government is now pushing implies that migrants will likely proceed to be stigmatized, adds Andrea Spehar, an associate professor in political science also on the University of Gothenburg. As parties just like the Sweden Democrats gain influence, migration-related stereotypes will remain a political talking point, experts say.
“They’ve, perhaps, also an interest in keeping that issue alive, because they think people will vote for them so long as immigration is perceived as an issue,” Parusel says. “So I might, personally, not think that the present attitudes will go away quickly.”
The Yr in Photos: 2022
All of those effects, while serious, are still theoretical for the time being. Spehar guesses several of the proposals is not going to be implemented, but Parusel predicts the reunification restriction plan, for instance, is feasible to get through Parliament and be legislated “relatively quickly.” The federal government also still must appoint committees – referred to in Sweden as “inquiries” – designed to develop more concrete policies, he notes.
One inquiry is about to be scheduled for the spring of 2023 with the particular task of “adapting Swedish asylum laws to a legal minimum level,” in keeping with Erik Engstrand, the press secretary for the federal government’s migration minister. He adds that a bill limiting residency permits issued on humanitarian grounds might be presented to Parliament “as soon as possible.”
But otherwise, Engstrand notes the agreement “accommodates different parts with different timelines” and there isn’t a precise time-frame as “processes are ongoing.”
Nevertheless these matters proceed, Aradhya says the high share of Sweden’s population being foreign-born – about 20% as of 2021 – won’t simply go away.
“The range has been here because the ’70s,” he says. “Those people aren’t leaving, they usually have families they usually have children and grandchildren here. That is their home and that is their children and grandchildren’s home. It is a process that is been happening for such a protracted time. Now that there is a backlash, it isn’t like they will rewind that point.”