Hej,

The long queue for work permit renewals (which could take months or in some cases, years) is without doubt one of the main things readers of The Local contact us about. Perhaps you yourself have emailed me in the past.

So when our reporter Becky Waterton managed to get a sit-down interview with Sweden’s new migration minister, Maria Malmer Stenergard of the conservative Moderate Party, this week, it was one of the first things she asked about.

Malmer Stenergard insisted, perhaps unsurprisingly, that the government wants to cut waiting times at the Migration Agency, and plans to create a separate department to focus only on highly skilled labour migrants.

But the key thing to emerge from the interview was her promise to consider creating a new travel visa for work permit holders awaiting a decision on their permit renewal.

Such a travel visa would be welcome news to many foreign residents in Sweden, and could help them make those long-awaited trips home that they’ve had to put on hold.

It means that those from nationalities that require a visa to enter Sweden would not risk being refused entry at the border if they try to return without a renewed work permit.

Readers have previously told The Local that, as a result of the long waits, they have missed weddings, postponed their own weddings, or been unable to visit elderly parents while their applications were being processed.

When the Swedish Games Industry recently produced a report on the industry’s skills gap, it mentioned long waiting times and being unable to travel home while waiting for a permit renewal as some of the top obstacles to attracting foreign tech talent.

So if a travel visa were to be introduced – just like they have in countries such as Germany and Denmark – it would benefit both foreign residents and Sweden itself.

It’s important to note that Malmer Stenergard’s comments to The Local were no more than a promise – albeit a fairly strong promise – to “consider” travel visas. If she does move forward with the plans, it will still take some time for such visas to materialise.

Let’s hope that by then, Sweden has managed to cut its waiting times – or moving from the renewal queue to the travel visa queue won’t feel like a huge difference.

You can listen to the interview on our Sweden in Focus podcast.

In other news

The migration minister also promised The Local to look into why Sweden has ordered more Brits to leave since Brexit than any other EU country, after describing it as “complete news to me” when we asked her about it.

Abba were wrong: the winner doesn’t take it all. Despite losing power in September’s election, Sweden’s one-and-only female prime minister Magdalena Andersson is still ruling their hearts, according to the polls.

The Swedish Central Bank, the Riksbank, raised its key interest rate to three percent, which marks the bank’s highest rate in 15 years.

The Swedish security service warned of an increased risk of terror attacks, and as a result the police blocked a new application to burn the Quran outside the Turkish embassy. We talk about this, too, on our Sweden in Focus podcast.

Loukas Christodoulou wrote an interesting article for us about joining the Swedish Home Guard. “I wasn’t expecting the experience to teach me so much about the people of Sweden,” he writes. You can read it here.

Thanks for reading,

Emma Löfgren
Editor, The Local Sweden

Inside Sweden is our weekly newsletter for members that gives you news, analysis and, sometimes, takes you behind the scenes at The Local. It’s published each Saturday and members can receive it directly to your inbox, by going to your newsletter preferences.