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INSIDE SWEDEN

Inside Sweden: How do foreigners feel about permanent residency tests?

Sweden is planning to introduce language and civics tests for permanent residency, but what do the country's foreign residents think of the move? More on this and the week's news in The Local's Inside Sweden newsletter.

Published: 3 June 2023 09:26 CEST
Inside Sweden: How do foreigners feel about permanent residency tests?
Sweden's proposed language and civics tests would be digital. Photo: Tim Aro/TT

This week’s biggest story for us came when the results of a government-commissioned inquiry into language and civics tests for permanent residency were presented.

Whenever someone asks me what The Local is, my short answer is that we write about Sweden’s news in English, but the longer answer is that we don’t only take our lead from the Swedish media. They covered this story too, but it was quickly forgotten.

But for many of our readers, this story has a potentially huge impact on their lives – at least for those who don’t yet have permanent residency – so we devoted a lot of attention to these tests and also looked into what they might look like in practice.

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We also asked readers on Facebook what they thought about having to pass language and civics tests for permanent residency, and surprisingly many were positive. That’s also been our experience when we’ve asked readers about similar things in the past.

Many tend to question the spirit in which these tests are proposed – are they really meant as a helpful tool to make people feel more at home in Sweden, or are they just part of a cynical package to make life harder for immigrants? But a lot of people also often argue that asking someone to learn the language and learn about society before deciding to settle down in a place for good is not unreasonable.

Many readers also said that learning Swedish and learning about Sweden had helped them integrate when they moved here, and they encouraged others to do the same.

Some were concerned about the extra administration tests might lead to – both for the state and for the individual. Would they make queues longer at the Migration Agency? And why couldn’t substitutes be accepted – if you’ve already completed Swedish for Immigrants (SFI) classes or studied at university in Swedish, shouldn’t that be enough?

The most common objection from readers who got in touch with us was the sometimes low quality of SFI courses – yes, they’re free, but are they useful or a time-waster? It seems to depend very much on which teacher you end up with.

This comment from Alina, who commented on The Local’s Facebook page, sums up what the majority of people who responded seemed to feel: “I understand the idea, it’s used in other countries too and as long as it is well implemented, it can work.

“On the other hand, SFI is practically the only way to learn Swedish, which in turn is the most important factor in finding a job (unless one lives in a bigger city where it’s easier to find a job where it’s OK to use English) and integrating in society.

“So for me the question is rather: if the government wants to start using these tests, how much is the Swedish state then willing to invest in increasing the quality of SFI classes on a national level, so immigrants would actually have a chance to pass the language test required for receiving permanent residency or citizenship?”

In other news

A group of women in their 90s sat next to me in my café the other day. They were celebrating one member’s 95th (!) birthday and were chatting away in a lovely, thick, southern Swedish accent. Their witty banter made me smile, as did the flowers that kept getting delivered to the café, creating a little indoor garden around their table.

What makes you smile about Sweden? Richard wrote an article this week about the 12 things that make him quietly chuckle. It’s heart-warming reading, I recommend it.

There’s been a lot of talk about Sweden’s stalled Nato application in the past week, and I expect there will be more in the month ahead, as world leaders try to get Turkey and Hungary to drop their objections by the next Nato summit in mid-July. We talk about what’s going on in the latest episode of The Local’s Sweden in Focus podcast.

How would Swedes vote if an election were held today? A new survey has bad news for the current government (although the next election is in 2026, so they’re pretty safe).

Finally, here’s an oldie but goldie from The Local’s archive, which made me laugh when Becky republished it on my day off: Ten phrases you only hear during a Swedish summer.

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.

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For members

INSIDE SWEDEN

Inside Sweden: Why troll factory won’t spark a government crisis

The Local's editor Emma Löfgren rounds up the biggest stories of the week in our Inside Sweden newsletter.

Published: 18 May 2024 09:22 CEST
Inside Sweden: Why troll factory won't spark a government crisis

Hej,

News that the Sweden Democrats are operating a far-right troll factory – which among other things the party uses to smear political opponents as well as its supposed allies – has caused probably the biggest rift yet between them and the three other parties that make up Sweden’s ruling coalition.

The leaders of the Moderates, Christian Democrats and Liberals all strongly criticised the Sweden Democrats’ blatant violation of the so-called “respect clause” in their Tidö collaboration agreement – the clause that states that the four parties should speak respectfully of each other in the media.

But after crisis talks held on Thursday, the conflict appears to be dying down.

The Sweden Democrats hit out strongly at the TV4 Kalla Fakta documentary where the troll factory was revealed, calling it a smear campaign and disinformation, but simultaneously went as far as to confirm that they do run anonymous social media accounts for which they refused to apologise.

They did say sorry to the Tidö parties for including them in the smear campaigns, and promised to remove some of the posts that had offended the other three parties, plus reassign a couple of members of staff to other duties until they’ve been given training on the Tidö “respect clause”.

But that doesn’t remove the fact that they vowed to continue the anonymous social media accounts whose existence they had prior to the documentary consistently denied, or the fact that some of the social media posts shared not only vague anti-immigration content, but white power propaganda.

The Liberals took the row the furthest, with Liberal leader Johan Pehrson describing people in his party as skitförbannade – pissed off as hell. He said ahead of the crisis meeting that they would demand that the Sweden Democrats cease all anonymous posting, which the latter rejected.

The party had two choices: walk out of the government collaboration and possibly spark a snap election, or walk back its strong words ahead of the meeting and wait for it to blow over.

They chose a kind of middle way, and called for an inquiry to be launched into banning political parties from operating anonymous social media accounts. The Social Democrats immediately accused the Liberals of trying to “bury the issue in an inquiry” – a classic Swedish political method of indecisive conflict avoidance which the Social Democrats themselves are well familiar with.

The Christian Democrats and Moderates both said that the Sweden Democrats had accepted their criticism and welcomed the party’s reshuffling of staff within its communications department, adding that it still had to prove its commitment to the Tidö agreement going forward.

So why isn’t this causing a bigger government crisis?

We asked Evelyn Jones, a politics reporter for the Dagens Nyheter daily, to come on the Sweden in Focus podcast to explain it to us:

“The Sweden Democrats are the biggest party in this coalition, even though they’re not part of the government. So the government really needs them. It’s hard for them to just stop cooperating with the Sweden Democrats,” she said.

“The cooperation between the government parties and the Sweden Democrats has been going pretty smoothly since the last election – more smoothly than a lot of people thought. This is probably the biggest crisis so far, but how big it is, is hard to say.”

You can listen to the full interview with her and the rest of the Sweden in Focus podcast here. 

In other news

If you are a descendant of a Sweden-born person and would like to find out more about them, there are ways to do that. I wrote this week about how to research your Swedish ancestry.

That guide was prompted by my interview with the chair of a community history group in a small parish in north-central Sweden, which has tried to get to the bottom of rumours that US mega star Taylor Swift’s ancestors hail from their village. I had so much fun writing this article.

The EU elections will be held on June 9th, but advance voting begins next week in Sweden. And poll cards are already being sent out, so if you’re eligible to vote you should receive yours soon.

Sweden’s consumer price index fell to 3.9 percent in April, below 4.0 percent for the first time in two years, reinforcing predictions that the central bank will keep lowering interest rates.

Sweden’s four-party government bloc has broken with the other parties in a parliamentary committee on public service broadcasting, adding what the opposition complains are “radically changed” proposals. How shocking are they?

Many people move to Sweden because of their partner’s career. Perhaps you’re one of these so-called “trailing spouses”. I’ve been asking readers in this situation how they’re settling in, and will have an article for you next week. There’s still time to answer our survey to share your experience.

Thanks for reading.

Have a good weekend,

Emma

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

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