How likely is it that Sweden would put a moratorium on new citizenships?

UPDATE:  A few days after we wrote this article, the government announced plans to slow down the award of new citizenships.

What’s happened?

It started when Christian Democrat leader Ebba Busch, who is also the Deputy Prime Minister, in an interview in Aftonbladet floated the idea of slowing down the processing of new citizenships until plans for tougher citizenship criteria come into force.

“It would be unwise if we now suddenly get tens of thousands of new Swedish citizens with the strongest passport in the whole world, the Swedish passport, but who do not really share these fundamental values that make Sweden Sweden,” Busch said in an interview in which she also advocated for restricting foreign residents’ voting rights.

“It means that we get people who get full citizenship but who don’t really buy into the terms and conditions for being Swedish. That’s a pretty dangerous road,” she said.

Jimmie Åkesson, leader of the far-right Sweden Democrat on whose support the government relies, then went one step further, welcoming Busch’s comments but arguing no new citizenships should be handed out until the new rules are in force.

What are these new and tougher rules?

There are primarily two major changes to citizenship being planned.

One of them is the introduction of language and civics tests, which was initially put forward by the previous centre-left government. It is also, however, right up the alley of the current right-wing coalition, which is aiming to radically tighten immigration rules.

The other one would see the residency requirement for citizenship extended – in other words, how long foreigners have to live in Sweden to qualify for Swedish citizenship.

Currently, it’s five years (or three years for spouses or cohabiting partners of Swedish citizens), which the government wants to extend to eight years “in the normal case”. It’s not yet clear what exceptions would apply to those with a Swedish partner or children.

And when will they be introduced?

Having already been delayed a few times, an ongoing inquiry is expected to present its final conclusions on both of these suggested changes in January 2025.

After that, this will all have to wind its way through the Swedish legislative process. It's hard to say exactly when these proposals could become law, but the government will almost certainly make it a priority to get them enacted before the 2026 election.

Has there been any political reaction to the suggestion of a moratorium on citizenships?

Not much. Coming out as a defender of more flexible (or at least not more inflexible) rules for immigrants isn’t seen as a vote winner in mainstream Swedish politics today.

Rasmus Ling, a Green Party member of parliament, reported Busch to the parliament’s constitutional committee for wrongfully trying to influence the Migration Agency. In Sweden, government agencies are independent in their day-to-day operations and ministers are banned from micromanaging them – known as ministerstyre.

It’s a grey area as to how exactly ministerstyre is defined, but Ling argued Busch certainly crossed the line as a representative of the government. “There are ways of running government agencies in Sweden and this is not it,” he told Aftonbladet.

Being reported to the constitutional committee may sound like a big deal, but in the grand scheme of things it’s usually fairly insignificant and happens to most ministers sooner or later. In theory, it could end with a vote of no confidence against her which she would win considering her bloc holds a parliamentary majority, but such a vote is unlikely. 

As for Åkesson, he's not a minister so he isn't bound by ministerstyre rules.

Was Busch speaking on behalf of the government?

It’s unclear, but making controversial statements to make headlines is one of Busch’s specialities, and the Christian Democrats have been trying to become a strong voice in favour of minimising migration in order to win over voters from the Sweden Democrats.

Presumably Busch was speaking more as leader of and campaigner for the Christian Democrats rather than as deputy prime minister. Åkesson said that his party had last year tried and failed to get the government to back a moratorium on new citizenship.

The Local has reached out to Migration Minister Johan Forssell’s office to find out whether he and the government support such a notion, but have not heard back. Forssell is a member of the Moderate Party, which has not made any official comments in favour of slowing down citizenships. That said, one of the party’s MPs did suggest a moratorium back in 2022, which perhaps reflects the views of some in the party.

The Liberals, who are also members of the government coalition, would almost certainly be against a moratorium or the slowing down of new citizenships.

How many people could this affect?

First of all, as we’ll explain further down, this should for now mainly be seen as political posturing rather than an actual government proposal, so it’s unlikely to actually happen – and if it were to happen, it’s unlikely it would happen any time soon.

But to give you the numbers, a total of 89,624 open applications for Swedish citizenship are currently with the Migration Agency, waiting for a decision.

That doesn’t include all the people who will be eligible for citizenship in the future. In the past three years, Sweden has received around 80,000 applications every year.

How likely is it that a moratorium will happen?

In the short term, it’s unlikely. In fact, the new rules might even come into force before decision-makers get around to a moratorium.

Another issue is that citizenship queues are already long, an issue The Local has covered in many articles. According to the Migration Agency, 75 percent of recently closed cases received a decision within 31 months. Reports from our readers vary, with some saying they received citizenship within weeks and others having to wait years for a decision.

The long waiting times have previously been criticised by the Parliamentary Ombudsmen – the Swedish watchdog that ensures public authorities follow the law – which is currently again investigating the Migration Agency over the long waits.

A moratorium or slow-down of processing would simply create an unmanageable backlog for the Migration Agency.

But the debate is indicative of an increasingly restrictive attitude to immigration by Swedish decision-makers, and the tougher rules we mentioned above (extending the residency requirement and introducing language and civics tests) will almost certainly go ahead.

What are foreigners saying?

The Local ran a survey earlier in November to collect our readers' views. You can read the results of that survey here.