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REFUGEE CRISIS

IMMIGRATION

Refugee talks planned between UK and Sweden

Sweden's Prime Minister Stefan Löfven has announced he will travel to London next week to hold talks on the refugee crisis with his British counterpart David Cameron.

Published: 27 October 2015 12:02 CET
Refugee talks planned between UK and Sweden
David Cameron (left) Markku Ulander
Löfven's office released a press statement on Tuesday revealing that the Swedish premier would arrive in the UK on Monday to discuss “the refugee situation in Europe, other EU questions and the upcoming climate conference in Paris”.
 
The bilateral talks are not the first between the Social Democrat prime minister and his British counterpart since Löfven was elected a year ago, but are expected to be among the most high-profile so far.
 
Sweden is currently campaigning for other EU member states – including the UK – to take in a greater share of refugees fleeing violence in the Middle East and Africa.
 
Up to 190,000 people are expected to seek asylum in the Nordic nation in 2015 and while Löfven has widely praised his country's response to the crisis he has said that Sweden is “approaching the limit” of its reception capacity.
 
 
As well as the refugee crisis, the pair are expected to touch on the upcoming British referendum on EU membership. Sweden is strongly opposed to a potential Brexit.
 
Margot Wallström, Sweden's Foreign Minister, told The Local in May that Britain was “very important to the EU” and said she would be personally sad if it left the European Union.
 
“To Sweden it has been a partner nation on very many issues – everything from free trade to social issues and other things – so we would of course miss them, and it would be, I think, a very serious blow to the entire EU if they were to leave,” she said.
 
Last month the UK's Finance Minister George Osborne visited Stockholm as part of his efforts to drum up support for the idea that Britain should be allowed to renegotiate its relationship with the other 27 member states, before UK voters are given the chance to decide whether to remain 'in or out' of the European Union.
 
Climate change will also be a key topic for Löfven and Cameron during their talks in London ahead of the UN climate change conference in Paris, which gets under way on November 30th and will be attended by both the British and Swedish leaders.
 
The goal of the gathering is to reach a new international agreement, applicable to all countries, with the aim of keeping global warming below 2C.
 
 
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WORK PERMITS

Is Sweden meeting its 30-day work permit target for high-skilled foreigners?

Three months after the Swedish Migration Agency rolled out a new system for work permits, how long are highly qualified foreign professionals having to wait for a decision?

Published: 3 May 2024 05:58 CEST
Updated: 3 May 2024 09:07 CEST
Is Sweden meeting its 30-day work permit target for high-skilled foreigners?

More than 7,750 work permit applications have been submitted to Sweden’s Migration Agency since a new system designed to speed up waiting times for skilled workers was implemented.

The new system, rolled out on January 29th, divides workers into four different categories depending on their profession. It was introduced after complaints about long waits for both first-time and renewed work permits and promised to process the top category, “A”, within 30 days.

Category A applications are those already classified as “highly qualified” under the Standard for Swedish Classification of Occupations (SSYK), and include leadership roles, roles requiring higher university education, and roles requiring university education or equivalent.

A Migration Agency spokesperson told The Local that a total of 95 percent of complete work permit applications sent in by highly qualified workers since January 29th were processed within 30 days, with a median handling time of 14 days, according to figures from April 15th.

“Our ambition is to decide cases for highly qualified labour within 30 days – sometimes it happens that the application isn’t complete and that can make the processing time longer,” the spokesperson said.

By mid-April, the Migration Agency had processed 4,461 complete applications, 550 incomplete applications and 423 applications for permanent residency which were complete but had to wait for a decision because the applicant’s previous permit hadn’t yet expired.

Around 77 percent of incomplete applications were processed within 30 days.

A Migration Agency spokesperson told The Local that there may be various reasons why an application is incomplete, but “common mistakes” include passports lacking a signature, incorrect information about accommodation when needed, no or not enough information about the applicant’s insurances, or no statement from the trade union about working conditions.

The spokesperson also said that the four percent of complete applications that didn’t get processed within a month were delayed because of, for example, the applicant failing to visit an embassy to show their passport before the deadline, having a criminal record in Sweden that required further investigation of their application, or the security police blocking their application.

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