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SWEDEN AND UKRAINE

Sweden to change law so Ukrainians can get personal numbers

Sweden's government hopes to change the law so that Ukrainian refugees can finally register as resident in Sweden and so obtain personal numbers and access to the BankID digital identification system.

Published: 6 February 2024 15:50 CET
Sweden to change law so Ukrainians can get personal numbers
Swedish Migration Minister Maria Malmer Stenergard. Photo: Lars Schröder/TT

“This means that you get a completely different level of access to Swedish healthcare, the possibility of getting BankID, and even a higher daily allowance than today,” Sweden’s Migration Minister, Maria Malmer Stenergard, said at a press conference at the Swedish parliament. 

Ukrainians who fled to Sweden under the European Union’s Temporary Protection Directive are not currently eligible for the same level of protection as others granted asylum.

Many of them have complained that because they are not eligible to be registered as resident, they cannot get a personal number or BankID, and are as a result barred from a large number of essential services. 

Once they can be registered, Ukrainians will also be eligible for a daily allowance of 308 kronor, up from the 71 kronor a day they are given to live on today. 

At the press conference, Malmer Stenergard said that the law would be sent out for consultation in a few weeks, after which she said she hoped that it would be rapidly processed and submitted for a vote in parliament so that Ukrainians can receive personal numbers by the end of the year. 

The law will apply to Ukrainians who have been living in Sweden for a year or more and who are expected to stay longer.

Martin Ådahl, the finance policy spokesperson for the Centre Party, told the TT newswire that he was relieved that the government had finally “got its ass in gear” and dealt with this longstanding problem.

But, he said, the government should also arrange an interim measure to increase the inadequate financial support Ukrainians receive so that they can survive until the law is passed. “This is an emergency situation,” he said. 

The Temporary Protection Directive is due to expire in March 2025, after which point the European Union is expected to extend it.

Member comments

  1. Very well news regarding Sweden,keeps me informed about your great country,while I live in India,God bless your country,thank you!

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For members

WORK PERMITS

Business leaders: Work permit threshold ‘has no place in Swedish labour model’

Sweden's main business group has attacked a proposal to exempt some jobs from a new minimum salary for work permits, saying it is "unacceptable" political interference in the labour model and risks seriously affecting national competitiveness.

Published: 25 April 2024 17:37 CEST
Updated: 26 April 2024 06:11 CEST
Business leaders: Work permit threshold 'has no place in Swedish labour model'

The Confederation of Swedish Enterprise said in its response to the government’s consultation, submitted on Thursday afternoon, that it not only opposed the proposal to raise the minimum salary for a work permit to Sweden’s median salary (currently 34,200 kronor a month), but also opposed plans to exempt some professions from the higher threshold. 

“To place barriers in the way of talent recruitment by bringing in a highly political salary threshold in combination with labour market testing is going to worsen the conditions for Swedish enterprise in both the short and the long term, and risks leading to increased fraud and abuse,” the employer’s group said.   

The group, which represents businesses across most of Sweden’s industries, has been critical of the plans to further raise the salary threshold for work permits from the start, with the organisation’s deputy director general, Karin Johansson, telling The Local this week that more than half of those affected by the higher threshold would be skilled graduate recruits Swedish businesses sorely need.   

But the fact that it has not only rejected the higher salary threshold, but also the proposed system of exemptions, will nonetheless come as a blow to Sweden’s government, and particular the Moderate Party led by Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson, which has long claimed to be the party of business. 

The confederation complained that the model proposed in the conclusions of the government inquiry published in February would give the government and political parties a powerful new role in setting salary conditions, undermining the country’s treasured system of collective bargaining. 

The proposal for the higher salary threshold, was, the confederation argued, “wrong in principle” and did “not belong in the Swedish labour market”. 

“That the state should decide on the minimum salary for certain foreign employees is an unacceptable interference in the Swedish collective bargaining model, where the parties [unions and employers] weigh up various needs and interested in negotiations,” it wrote. 

In addition, the confederation argued that the proposed system where the Sweden Public Employment Service and the Migration Agency draw up a list of exempted jobs, which would then be vetted by the government, signified the return of the old system of labour market testing which was abolished in 2008.

“The government agency-based labour market testing was scrapped because of it ineffectiveness, and because it was unreasonable that government agencies were given influence over company recruitment,” the confederation wrote. 

“The system meant long handling times, arbitrariness, uncertainty for employers and employees, as well as an indirect union veto,” it added. “Nothing suggests it will work better this time.” 

For a start, it said, the Public Employment Service’s list of professions was inexact and outdated, with only 179 professions listed, compared to 430 monitored by Statistics Sweden. This was particularly the case for new skilled roles within industries like battery manufacturing. 

“New professions or smaller professions are not caught up by the classification system, which among other things is going to make it harder to recruit in sectors which are important for the green industrial transition,” the confederation warned. 

Rather than implement the proposals outlined in the inquiry’s conclusions, it concluded, the government should instead begin work on a new national strategy for international recruitment. 

“Sweden instead needs a national strategy aimed at creating better conditions for Swedish businesses to be able to attract, recruit and retain international competence.”

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