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UPDATE: Sweden allows residents to return from UK – but extends flight ban

Sweden will amend its temporary entry ban on people travelling from the UK to allow residents to return home even if they are not Swedish citizens, the government has now confirmed. But a ban on UK-Sweden flights has been extended.

Published: 23 December 2020 09:47 CET
Updated: 23 December 2020 16:27 CET

UPDATE: Sweden allows residents to return from UK – but extends flight ban

File photo of passport checks at Arlanda Airport. Photo: Fredrik Sandberg/TT

British citizens and other people travelling from the UK who live and work in Sweden will after all be exempted from a ban on travel into Sweden from the UK, the Swedish government confirmed on Wednesday afternoon.

The changes will come into effect at midnight and will, as before, apply until January 21st.

“When it comes to the UK it is important that we aim to act together with the rest of the EU in what is a particular situation. The changes to the entry ban are in line with the common EU approach. It is also reasonable that people who live and work in Sweden should be able to return,” read a government statement.

People who need to travel for urgent family reasons will also be exempted from the entry ban.

The news comes less than a day after a justice ministry spokesperson told The Local that Sweden would not make any changes to the entry ban, which only made exceptions for Swedish citizens when it was introduced on Monday.

The British embassy said it had been in contact with Swedish decision-makers to try to find a solution for Brits stranded in the UK. “The Ambassador has raised concerns with Swedish officials about UK nationals resident in Sweden being able to return home. We continue to engage to try and minimise disruption for travellers and ensure commercial routes to the UK remain open,” an embassy spokesperson told The Local earlier today.

It won't all be plain sailing for anyone hoping to return home from the UK to Sweden. A separate ban on flights from UK-Sweden, which was set to expire at 4pm today, has been extended until the end of the year.

Ambulance flights and flights transporting goods may continue to operate as normal.

The Swedish Transport Agency will be able to lift the flight ban before December 31st, if the Public Health Agency believes it is justified in terms of Covid-19 infection control.

British Ambassador Judith Gough told The Local that Brits who live in Sweden could still return if they could find flight connections: “Our understanding is that people should be able to come in via third countries, but obviously travellers will want to be well-informed as to how that works given travel restrictions elsewhere.”

“Those who live and work in Sweden but don't yet have uppehållstillstånd must be able to demonstrate that they live and work in Sweden.”

A message for British Citizens who are resident in Sweden from Ambassador @JudithMGough pic.twitter.com/0ZbzLe6akF

— Brittiska Ambassaden Stockholm (@UKinSweden) December 23, 2020

The decision to tighten travel restrictions against the UK was taken due to the spread of a mutated form of Covid-19, which first appeared in London and Kent. It is reported to be up to 70 percent more contagious than other strains, but based on what scientists know so far, does not appear to cause more serious illness.

There are recommendations in place for anyone who travelled from the UK to Sweden from December 12th. You should stay at home and avoid all close contacts for as long as you can and for at least a week after arriving, the Public Health Agency said. This is to limit the risk of spreading the new variant of the virus within Sweden.

You should also take a PCR test for the coronavirus as soon as possible after arriving, and repeat the test on the fifth day after arriving. If you receive a positive result you should follow the usual guidelines for this situation: staying at home and avoiding all close contacts once you are both completely symptom-free and at least seven days have passed since the positive test result. If you need medical advice, call 1177.

If you work in the medical or care sector, extra restrictions apply. It is especially crucial that you stay at home and avoid contacts if you have recently returned from the UK or even if someone you live with has recently returned from the UK. If you returned from the UK from December 12th onwards and work in these sectors, you should let your employer know so that they can arrange regular testing.

How to get tested for Covid-19 in Sweden (with or without a personal number)

The sudden travel bans, in Sweden and several other European countries, have created hurdles for any Brits who were hoping to move to the EU before the post-Brexit transition period ends on December 31st. After the turn of the year, they will be covered by the same migration rules as other third-country nationals.

“British Citizens hoping to move to Sweden before the end of the transition period should refer to advice from the Swedish Migration Agency (Migrationsverket),” a British embassy spokesperson told The Local by email.

“Migrationsverket have told the British Embassy that applicants with evidence of a life in Sweden prior to 31 December, do not need to be in Sweden before 31 December in order to apply for the new residents status. However, if you are unable to demonstrate a life in Sweden prior to 31 December, you do not fall within scope of the Withdrawal Agreement. Those with questions about this should refer to the Migration Agency.”

Here's the Migration Agency's latest statement.

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'I feel exiled': How Brits in Europe are locked abroad with foreign partners

Europe is home to hundreds of thousands of British nationals, many of whom have foreign partners and children. But if they want to move to the UK to live and work it will soon become more difficult.

When it comes to getting a partner visa, the UK has some of the strictest rules in Europe. In addition to hefty fees and a healthcare surcharge, the Home Office requires British citizens and long-term residents who bring their foreign partner to the UK to have a minimum income showing they can support them without relying on the social security system.

The minimum income up until now was set at £18,600 (€21,700), or £22,400 (€26,100) if the couple had one child, plus another £2,400 (€2,800) for each other child.

But these income requirements will rise steeply from April 11th 2024.

How it works: What Brits in Europe should know about UK’s new minimum income rules

From this date the minimum a British national or long-term resident will need to earn if they want to return home will increase to £29,000 (€33,800) and up to £38,000 (€44,313) by spring 2025, although there will no longer be an additional amount for accompanying children.

Alternatively, families need to prove they have at least £62,500 (€72,884) in cash, which from 11 April will increase to £88,500 (€103,207).

‘Family life has been destroyed’

To put this in context the Migration Observatory at the University of Oxford suggests that around 50 percent of UK employees earn less than the £29,000 threshold and 70 percent less than £38,700. The Observatory also says that while the number of people affected by the policy is small compared to the overall UK immigration (family visas represent 5 percent of all entry visas), the impacts on concerned families can be “very significant”.

The Migration Observatory notes that other European countries apply income thresholds to sponsor foreign partners. Spain, for instance, requires sponsors to have an annual income equal to the social security salary. In Denmark, sponsors must not have claimed social benefits in the three years before the application. But in Spain and the US, the partner’s foreign income also counts towards the threshold.

So what does this mean for mixed British and international families living in Europe who might want or even need to return to the UK to live?

Campaigners have complained that many Britons with foreign partners have simply been “locked abroad” or families have been separated while they try to meet the minimum income or savings requirement.

Reunite Families UK, a non-profit organisation supporting people affected by the UK spouse visa rules, says this policy causes distress, especially for children.

Some 65 percent of respondents in research carried out by the group said that their child received a diagnosis of a mental health condition due to the separation of their parents.

“Since its introduction, this policy has destroyed the family life of countless people and children,” Matteo Besana, Advocacy and Campaigns Manager at Reunite Families UK said.

“Women have been forced to become single parents to their children and live away from their partner and the father of their children only because they didn’t meet the threshold.

“As shown by our research on the mental health impact of the policy, these are scars that, particularly for children, will be carried for the rest of their lives,” Besana said.

The people most likely to be affected are women, who tend to earn less or not work because they took on caring responsibilities. Also heavily impacted are people under 30 and over 50 years of age, people living outside London and the Southeast of England where wages are higher, and those belonging to specific ethnicities, according to the Migration Observatory.

The Local spoke to two British women, in Italy and Sweden, struggling to return to the UK with their families because of these rules.

More savings needed

Sarah Douglas, who has been living in Italy since 2007, was planning to return to Scotland with her Italian husband and three children.

“It was always our long-term goal to move back to the UK after we had our children and once we’d have saved enough to buy a home in the UK,” she said.

“In hindsight, we should have gone after the Brexit referendum, but in the beginning it wasn’t clear what the final deal would be and I naively assumed that situations like mine would be taken into account and we would have the right to return… Once it did become clear, we were in the middle of the pandemic and it wasn’t the time to move,” she said.

Having stayed home to take care of the children, Sarah will find it hard to land a job near her family in Scotland that meets the minimum income required to sponsor a foreign partner for a UK visa.

Her husband, a computer programmer, has been trying to get an employment visa, “but most of them state that you must already have permission to work in the UK,” Sarah says. And applying for British citizenship is not an option for a non-UK resident spouse.

‘People need to be aware’

Sarah and her husband are trying to save as much as they can, an alternative to the income requirement, but the amount they need is rising to almost £90,000, meaning it may be a long time before they have enough to move home.

While the aim of the UK’s policy is to ensure families moving to the UK are not a burden on the taxpayer, the reality is that people arriving on a family visa are not able to claim any benefits from the UK government.

“They should judge the overall financial viability of the family unit, rather than just the earning potential of the sponsoring partner,” Sarah says.

“We could live well with my husband’s salary and he could work remotely. We are stable and financially secure, but because I don’t earn any money, they say we are not able to support ourselves.”

Sarah says that most of the British public are unaware of the minimum income requirement.

“People think if you are married, your husband is allowed to come to the UK, but when I say no, it doesn’t work like that, they are really surprised. A lot of people are not aware of how this could affect them,” she said.

Looking for a job from abroad

Another British women who lives in Sweden with her South African husband and two children and plans to move to the UK told The Local how the minimum income requirement had put them in a “precarious and stressful situation”.

The woman, who preferred to remain anonymous said: “After having the two children, I was very fortunate to find a research position and do my PhD, which is a salaried position in Scandinavia, and now that I finished, we are looking to leave.

“But I need a job in the UK to sponsor my husband, and as a new graduate with limited work experience, it is not easy. It is even more difficult when you are not in the country and I missed out on opportunities because they wanted an immediate start. I really don’t want to move without my whole family,” she said.

She says the UK’s policy is “gendered and geographically discriminatory” because it makes life harder for women and also harder for anyone who is planning to move to a part of the country that isn’t in London, where salaries are higher.

“I feel exiled from my country and separated from my family there,” she said.

Her husband, she argues, has his own company and could continue working remotely from the UK, earning well above the requirement. He would also pay taxes and national insurance while having to pay the healthcare surcharge, a form of double taxation, she argues. But that would not entitle him to a visa.

“Our house is on the market now. We have booked removal companies for the 6th of June. The dog is booked for his transport. I just think this policy is so out of touch with the modern world,” she said.

Reunite Families UK has called on the government to recognise the right for British or settled citizens to bring their close family members to the UK and scrap the minimum income requirement. Alternatively, the group says the rules should take into consideration the earning potential of both partners and consider “the best interests of children”.

A petition on the UK parliament website asks the government to reconsider the minimum income policy. If it reaches 100,000 signatures, it will have to be debated in parliament.

This article has been produced by Europe Street news.

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