Sweden Wants To Narrow Path To Citizenship

Sweden's government said on Tuesday it wanted to toughen the rules for obtaining Swedish nationality, with a government probe recommending "honest living" as a prerequisite. It also recommended extending the required duration of time spent in the country prior to obtaining citizenship.

To become Swedish, a foreigner would have to live in Sweden for eight years -- as opposed to the current five -- pass a test on Swedish society and values, and do a language exam, according to the probe ordered by the centre-right government in 2023.

"Citizenship must be earned, not be handed out unconditionally," Migration Minister Johan Forssell said in a post on Instagram. Forssell told a press conference that citizenship also helped tie people of disparate backgrounds together under "a common Swedish identity". "This is particularly important at a time when Sweden has welcomed hundreds of thousands of people from many parts of the world in recent years," he said.

Following a large influx of asylum seekers to Sweden during the 2015 migrant wave, successive left- and right-wing governments have tightened immigration and asylum rules. Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson's centre-right minority government, which is backed in parliament by the anti-immigration Sweden Democrats, has introduced ever harsher curbs since coming to power in 2022.

Forssell said it was "crucial" to "always be very clear about the values that must apply in Sweden".  Family is important but it does not stand above the law. There is equality between the sexes. You can marry whoever you want. "Girls and boys have the right to swim and play football. If you don't accept that, Sweden is not the country for you," the minister said.

The probe recommended tightening up the requirement for "honest living". In concrete terms, this would mean it would be harder for a person who has committed a misdemeanour or a crime, or who has unpaid debts, to obtain Swedish nationality, said Kirsi Laakso Utvik, who led the probe. Human rights organisation Civil Rights Defenders was critical of the proposal.

"Research shows that tougher requirements for citizenship do not increase the incentives for integration, but rather contribute to the exclusion of a growing group of people who find themselves in the country for a long time without the basic rights of citizenship," the organisation's legal director John Stauffer told AFP.
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