Social Europe

politics, economy and employment & labour

  • Themes
    • Global cities
    • Strategic autonomy
    • War in Ukraine
    • European digital sphere
    • Recovery and resilience
  • Publications
    • Books
    • Dossiers
    • Occasional Papers
    • Research Essays
    • Brexit Paper Series
  • Podcast
  • Videos
  • Newsletter
  • Membership

Government by finger-pointing

Lisa Pelling 24th October 2022

The new Swedish government, Lisa Pelling writes, is obsessed with stigmatising immigrants and refugees.

migration,Kristersson,Swedish government,Sweden Democrats,nationalist,neo-Nazi,radical-right,integration,immigrants,refugees
A protester in Stockholm following the death of George Floyd at the hands of a police officer in Minneapolis in 2020—racial profiling was already a problem in Sweden too (FlyHighMedia/shutterstock.com)

In an essay written shortly after Donald Trump’s victory in the United States presidential election in 2016, the Russian author Masha Gessen issued advice on how to survive in an autocracy. One admonition was to be outraged. ‘In the face of the impulse to normalize,’ Gessen wrote, ‘it is essential to maintain one’s capacity for shock.’ 

This is useful advice for anyone trying to grasp recent developments in Sweden.

In the general election on September 11th, Sweden’s social-democratic prime minister, Magdalena Andersson, lost her red-green majority in the parliament to a coalition rallying behind Ulf Kristersson, leader of the conservative Moderates, as her successor. The coalition comprises three mainstream right-wing parties—the Moderates (19.1 percent of the vote), the Christian Democrats (5.3 per cent) and the Liberals (4.6 percent)—plus the Sweden Democrats. The largest component of the coalition with 20.5 per cent support, this nationalist, radical-right party is rooted in the Swedish neo-Nazi movement.

Unsurprisingly, that the Swedish Liberals should have contributed with their decisive votes to the ascent to power of the Sweden Democrats has caused turmoil in the Renew group in the European Parliament. The group has even considered excluding the single Swedish Liberal MEP from it.


Become part of our Community of Thought Leaders


Get fresh perspectives delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for our newsletter to receive thought-provoking opinion articles and expert analysis on the most pressing political, economic and social issues of our time. Join our community of engaged readers and be a part of the conversation.

Sign up here

It is not much consolation that the Sweden Democrats have no ministers in the government Kristersson appointed last week. The party has literarily been handed the keys to the government offices, in which it will be able to place a large number of political officers. And the government has tied itself to a detailed agreement, the Tidö deal, in which the parties have set out to co-operate closely in six areas: healthcare, climate and energy, crime, migration and integration, education and the economy.

Migration and integration

Some of these are covered in one or two pages, with mainly non-binding promises of a ‘we will appoint an inquiry to look into the pros and cons’ character. But 19 out of the 63 pages are devoted to detailed policy proposals on migration and integration.

Hitherto, Sweden has accepted each year 5,000 ‘quota’ refugees—those selected by the United Nations refugee agency, UNHCR, for resettlement in a third country and so the most vulnerable of all in need of protection. That number will be cut to 900 and will only include those with a ‘good predicted integration’. Family reunification will also be made more difficult.

Moreover, all residence permits in Sweden will now be temporary. And, with compulsory tests of competence in Swedish and knowledge of Swedish society, it will be more difficult for immigrants to obtain Swedish citizenship. Both residence permits and citizenships (for individuals with more than one) will also be easier to revoke.

New grounds for revocation are to be added. In addition to criminal offences, social ‘misconduct’ (bristande vandel)—‘such as lack of compliance with rules’—will lead to the withdrawal of temporary as well as (previously) permanent residence permits. The leader of the Left Party, Nooshi Dadgostar, told the Riksdag how her parents had fled from the mullahs of Iran; they could never have imagined Sweden would introduce its own morality police.

‘Illegal aliens’

Immigration controls will not only be intensified at the borders. Internally, the police will be ordered to intensify their searches for ‘illegal aliens’—‘stop and frisk’ actions which are likely to increase already rampant racial profiling. In connection with such controls, the government will seek to give the police ‘an enhanced possibility to dispose of and empty digital media’, to carry out body searches and to take DNA samples—as well as checking on ‘compliance with rules’.

DNA samples and other biometric data will, to a much larger extent than today, be registered, stored and—notwithstanding the risks of serious violations of personal integrity—shared with a number of Swedish authorities. These authorities, including professions such as teachers and social workers, will, in their turn, be required to share information with the police and abide by a ‘notification obligation’: anyone suspected of not having legal residence—or not being morally deserving of it, because of social ‘misconduct’—must be reported to the police.

Equipping the police with unrestrained authority to stop and search, sample and register anyone who can be suspected of being an illegal alien will make life difficult for everyone belonging to Sweden’s visible minorities. For those living in designated ‘search zones’ where the police will have even more extensive powers to control individuals and carry out house searches, life will be hell. Walking down the street, boarding a bus, on the way to a job interview, on a date: the police will be able to stop an individual anywhere and ask for proof of their right to belong—in their own country.


Support Progressive Ideas: Become a Social Europe Member!


Support independent publishing and progressive ideas by becoming a Social Europe member for less than 5 Euro per month. You can help us create more high-quality articles, podcasts and videos that challenge conventional thinking and foster a more informed and democratic society. Join us in our mission - your support makes all the difference!

Become a Social Europe Member

Polarisation and segregation

These repressive policies will not contribute to fulfilling the government’s ostensible goal of improving integration. If anything, they will increase polarisation and segregation.

Some 800,000 Swedish inhabitants are not formally Swedish citizens. Two million Swedes were born abroad. Not only is the new government targeting millions with arbitrary rules which violate personal integrity and compromise the rule of law. ‘Foreigners’ will be made the scapegoats for the pressing societal problems the new government will be unable to solve.

In his first address to parliament as prime minister, Kristersson confirmed his government’s obsession with stigmatising non-ethnic Swedes. He listed the challenges of crime, recession, inflation and energy prices. Then he asserted: ‘Sweden’s largest economic and social problems are due to high levels of immigration.’

If, following Gessen’s advice, one resists the impulse to normalise, it is possible to see how the sum of these policies will change Sweden—fundamentally. Singling out a group of the population as the problem, giving authorities the power to restrict arbitrarily the rights and freedoms of this group and forcing others to be accomplices of these policies, by making it compulsory to sneak, is not only utterly repressive and repulsively xenophobic. It is also building the pillars of a fascist state.

It is, indeed, shocking.

This is a joint publication by Social Europe and IPS-Journal

Lisa Pelling

Lisa Pelling is a political scientist and head of the Stockholm-based think tank Arena Idé. She regularly contributes to the daily digital newspaper Dagens Arena and has a background as a political adviser and speechwriter at the Swedish foreign ministry.

You are here: Home / Politics / Government by finger-pointing

Most Popular Posts

Russia,information war Russia is winning the information warAiste Merfeldaite
Nanterre,police Nanterre and the suburbs: the lid comes offJoseph Downing
Russia,nuclear Russia’s dangerous nuclear consensusAna Palacio
Belarus,Lithuania A tale of two countries: Belarus and LithuaniaThorvaldur Gylfason and Eduard Hochreiter
retirement,Finland,ageing,pension,reform Late retirement: possible for many, not for allKati Kuitto

Most Recent Posts

European Union,enlargement,Balkans EU enlargement—back to the futureEmilija Tudzarovska
European Health Data Space,EHDS,Big Tech Fostering public research or boosting Big Tech?Philip Freeman and Jan Willem Goudriaan
migrant workers,non-EU Non-EU migrant workers—the ties that bindLilana Keith
ECB,European Central Bank,deposit facility How the ECB’s ‘deposit facility’ subsidises banksDavid Hollanders
migrant,Europe,workers All work and low pay—Europe’s migrant workforceAnkita Anand

Other Social Europe Publications

strategic autonomy Strategic autonomy
Bildschirmfoto 2023 05 08 um 21.36.25 scaled 1 RE No. 13: Failed Market Approaches to Long-Term Care
front cover Towards a social-democratic century?
Cover e1655225066994 National recovery and resilience plans
Untitled design The transatlantic relationship

Foundation for European Progressive Studies Advertisement

The summer issue of the Progressive Post magazine by FEPS is out!

The Special Coverage of this new edition is dedicated to the importance of biodiversity, not only as a good in itself but also for the very existence of humankind. We need a paradigm change in the mostly utilitarian relation humans have with nature.

In this issue, we also look at the hazards of unregulated artificial intelligence, explore the shortcomings of the EU's approach to migration and asylum management, and analyse the social downside of the EU's current ethnically-focused Roma policy.


DOWNLOAD HERE

Hans Böckler Stiftung Advertisement

WSI European Collective Bargaining Report 2022 / 2023

With real wages falling by 4 per cent in 2022, workers in the European Union suffered an unprecedented loss in purchasing power. The reason for this was the rapid increase in consumer prices, behind which nominal wage growth fell significantly. Meanwhile, inflation is no longer driven by energy import prices, but by domestic factors. The increased profit margins of companies are a major reason for persistent inflation. In this difficult environment, trade unions are faced with the challenge of securing real wages—and companies have the responsibility of making their contribution to returning to the path of political stability by reducing excess profits.


DOWNLOAD HERE

ETUI advertisement

The four transitions and the missing one

Europe is at a crossroads, painfully navigating four transitions (green, digital, economic and geopolitical) at once but missing the transformative and ambitious social transition it needs. In other words, if the EU is to withstand the storm, we do not have the luxury of abstaining from reflecting on its social foundations, of which intermittent democratic discontent is only one expression. It is against this background that the ETUI/ETUC publishes its annual flagship publication Benchmarking Working Europe 2023, with the support of more than 70 graphs and a special contribution from two guest editors, Professors Kalypso Nikolaidïs and Albena Azmanova.


DOWNLOAD HERE

Eurofound advertisement

Eurofound Talks: housing

In this episode of the Eurofound Talks podcast, Mary McCaughey speaks with Eurofound’s senior research manager, Hans Dubois, about the issues that feed into housing insecurity in Europe and the actions that need to be taken to address them. Together, they analyse findings from Eurofound’s recent Unaffordable and inadequate housing in Europe report, which presents data from Eurofound’s Living, working and COVID-19 e-survey, European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions and input from the Network of Eurofound Correspondents on various indicators of housing security and living conditions.


LISTEN HERE

About Social Europe

Our Mission

Article Submission

Membership

Advertisements

Legal Disclosure

Privacy Policy

Copyright

Social Europe ISSN 2628-7641

Social Europe Archives

Search Social Europe

Themes Archive

Politics Archive

Economy Archive

Society Archive

Ecology Archive

Follow us

RSS Feed

Follow us on Facebook

Follow us on Twitter

Follow us on LinkedIn

Follow us on YouTube