Sweden's three governing parties agreed in the Tidö Agreement with the far-right Sweden Democrats that they would launch a government inquiry into measures that can "powerfully stimulate" the voluntary return of immigrants to their countries of origin.
On October 26th last year, it appointed the Swedish economist Joakim Ruist to lead this inquiry, ordering him to analyse the incentives in place to encourage such returns in Denmark, Norway, Germany and elsewhere.
To the far-right Sweden Democrats, Ruist must have seemed a reliable choice. His research at Gothenburg University had concluded, controversially, that refugees coming to Sweden represented a net loss to the economy of around 74,000 kronor per person per year.
In the run-up to the 2018 election he caused yet more controversy with a combative interview on public broadcaster SVT.
"It is simply a win-win situation," the party's immigration spokesperson, Ludvig Aspling, said at the press conference launching the inquiry. "There are people who do not like Sweden, who have not managed to integrate here. If they then get a little more support to return, I think many would seize it."
So what did the inquiry conclude?
In his conclusions, Ruist conceded that he had not exactly given the answer the government had been looking for.
"The core of the inquiry’s remit is to study how other countries support immigrants’ voluntary emigration, to find methods that can considerably increase this emigration. In its work, the inquiry has concluded that no such methods are to be found," he wrote in a final comment to the report.
"The inquiry thus admits to having failed in its core mission. But it claims to have processed the relevant information, and that this failure is due to the apparent lack of any experiences or indications of appropriate methods."
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So would it work to pay immigrants to go back home?
The inquiry did, in fact, find that increasing the size of the grant given to immigrants to return to their home countries would lead to an increase in the number of voluntary returns, and that in the long-term this would save the government money.
If the grant was increased fifteen-fold from today's 10,000 kronor to 150,000 kronor -- close to the 100,000 Danish kroner offered in Denmark -- this would increase the number of voluntary returns by about 300 people, he concluded. If the grant was increased still further to 350,000 kronor, he predicted that this would increase voluntary returns by about 700 people.
In the long term, he found, this would even yield a small benefit to Sweden's public finances.
A grant of 350,000 kronor would cost the taxpayer for the first 15 years, after which it would start to bring gains, with an average of 200 million kronor a year (€17.m) saved over the first 25 years.
A grant of 150,000 kroner would start to yield a positive result after 13 years which annual gains of 100m kronor over the first 25 years.
A negative impact on willingness to integrate
The problem, he argued, was that this small fiscal benefit comes alongside risks that, although hard to quantify, were potentially far more significant.
"An emigration grant that is justified by the aim to benefit public finances sends a signal to the grant’s target group that they are not welcome in Sweden – even to the extent that Sweden is willing to pay large amounts to get rid of some of them," he wrote.
"Such a signal could hardly not have a negative impact on the target group’s willingness – and outlook on their opportunities – to become an integrated part of Swedish society. This could have consequences such as lower labor market participation and more crime among the immigrant groups that the grant targeted."
While hard to quantify, he argued, these negative impacts were highly likely to exceed the very small positive fiscal impact of increasing the grant.
"Very small such effects -- of as little as one-thousandth or less in economic value -- would with high certainty be large enough to wipe out direct annual fiscal gains of around the aforementioned 200 million kronor. And considerably larger effects should probably also not be ruled out."
As a result, he concluded that significantly raising the emigration grant was "risky and therefore best avoided".
"The potential direct fiscal gains are with high certainty small, while there is also some risk of societal harm of greater magnitudes. The potential gains do not appear large enough to justify the risks."
So what did the inquiry propose?
The inquiry nonethless did make some recommendations, some of which might please the Sweden Democrats.
It proposed that:
- The grant to immigrants’ emigration should no longer be means tested.
- The grant’s target group should be expanded to also include all family immigrants.
- A person who at one point belongs to the group that is entitled to the grant, should remain entitled to the grant if they obtain Swedish citizenship at a later time.
- Grants should not be given to those who move to a country that is a member of the European Union, or has a close collaboration with it regarding the movement of people.
- It should be clarified that the current right of the holder of a permanent residence permit, to retain their permanent residence permit for up to two years upon emigration, also applies to those who receive an emigration grant. And also that exercising this right should not affect a person’s possibilities to obtain the grant.
- The holder of a temporary residence permit who receives an emigration grant should forfeit their residence permit.
- It should be made possible to recover grants that have been disbursed, if the recipient does not emigrate, or emigrates and then returns to Sweden, or has provided false information to obtain the grant.
But it also doubled down on its opposition to efforts to boost thenumber of migrants returning, calling for the government to stop funding projects at the Swedish Migration Agency aimed at increasing emigration.
"Future budgets for the Swedish Migration Agency should not include provisions for supporting projects aimed at supporting immigrants’ emigration," he concluded.
So how did the government react?
Sweden's Migration Minister Maria Malmer Stenergard chose her words carefully when asked whether she was satisfied with the inquiry's conclusions.
"We see certain parts where we believe further work is required," she told the TT newswire. "I personally think that it would have been interesting to look even more closely than the inquiry chair did at what has been done in Denmark."
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