Can Sweden’s tough stance on migration spill over into the EU?
Sweden takes over the rotating EU presidency at the beginning of the new year. After a new government took power in October promising to get tougher on immigration, could these attitudes spill over into European politics next year?
On December 3, Sweden sent a Kurdish man named Mahmut Tat back to Turkey, according to French television Radio France International (RFI). He was deported after living there since 2015.
The fact is that Tat had been told to leave Sweden already a year ago, reports RFI, after his application for asylum was rejected. Tat had requested asylum in Sweden seven years ago after he was sentenced by a Turkish court to six months in prison; Turkey claimed Tat had links to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which is classified as a terrorist organization in Turkey.
It’s a claim Tat continues to deny.
According to RFI correspondent Carlotta Morteo in Stockholm, Tat stayed in Sweden for he had nowhere else to go. He worked there and had rebuilt his life.
But on November 22 he was picked up during a routine street check and arrested after he was found to be in possession of a notice to leave the country.
Flew to Istanbul
Shortly afterwards, he was put on a plane with another Turkish citizen bound for Istanbul. As RFI notes, it was a so-called administrative deportation and not an extradition.
If he had been extradited, the procedure would have been governed by a completely different set of complicated rules before the flight could take place, including needing the approval of a chief prosecutor at the nation’s highest court.
According to RFITurkish media close to the government said that upon arrival in Istanbul, Tat immediately faced a court before being sent to prison.
Growing influence of the Sweden Democrats in Sweden
Sweden’s new government with far-right parties promised from the start that it would take a tougher stance on immigration, and some critics might say that Tat could be considered one of the first victims of this new direction. The election of the new government was the first time that a Swedish prime minister – in this case Ulf Kristersson – had to rely on the votes of the extreme right in order to govern.
The fact is that the actual governing coalition consists of the Moderates, the Christian Democrats and the Liberals, however, the coalition needs votes from the far-right Sweden Democrats to pass its laws. Therefore, it is likely to make concessions on the issue of immigration – one of the main political points of the extreme right.
During the last decade, Sweden has experienced one of the highest immigration rates within the EU.
The new government’s policy document actually contains several such protectionist policies that the Sweden Democrats advocate in law and order and immigration. According to World Socialist Web Site (WSWS) The Sweden Democrats also ensured that their party has representatives in all government departments to oversee the work of the new government.
According to WSWSsome stated policies of the new government regarding immigration may include “the creation of working-class zones, migrant areas where police can search people indiscriminately without reason or justification.”
The new government is also to consider whether to create asylum “transit zones” where they can hold migrants seeking asylum.
A total immigration overhaul
But there may also be many changes underway for those who are already in Sweden under refugee status or similar protection status. The new government, with the support of the Sweden Democrats, has proposed to abolish the idea of granting permanent asylum to refugees and according to WSWS, will campaign for a “more than four-fifths reduction in the number of refugees admitted per year.”
They also say the government intends to triple the minimum income required for work-based immigration, which would, they say, disqualify “poorer migrant workers”.
Furthermore, those who apply for a Swedish residence permit could be required to contribute a DNA sample for a state-wide DNA register of foreigners. In addition, those without Swedish citizenship who are suspected of being gang members may be eligible for deportation even before they can be found guilty of the crime in court, reports WSWS.
The new government may also hold an inquiry into whether Sweden can double the time required to qualify for Swedish citizenship. The government not only wants to extend it to eight years, but also wants to add stricter language and cultural knowledge qualifications, according to WSWSincluding possibly swearing an oath of loyalty to the Swedish state.
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Turkey, Russia, Sweden, NATO
It could be, RFI conjecture, another reason why handing over a migrant like Tat to Turkey at this moment may serve a completely different purpose – one that has far less to do with domestic affairs and is more related to foreign policy:
The move could also give Sweden positive “points” with the Turkish government when it comes to the prospect of Sweden becoming a full member of NATO – a decision that depends on the consent of all NATO members, including Turkey.
Turkey, which cooperates quite closely with Russia in the fighting in Syria, had until now opposed both Sweden and neighboring Finland’s applications to join NATO after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine at the beginning of the year.
RFI Parliament believes that Tat was an “easy target” in this tug-of-war because he was not a registered refugee or a Swedish citizen. since he received his deportation order, he essentially no longer had the correct papers.
Reports of torture in Turkish prisons
But the Kurdish community in Sweden says his return to Istanbul sends out a negative signal. They say they are angry that Sweden seems to have stopped taking their plight seriously when considering someone’s asylum application.
They stress that the Kurds are severely oppressed in Turkey and are often tortured in prison.
In addition, there are only eight countries of origin that are considered “safe” by Swedish authorities, according to the Swedish Migration Agency, and Turkey is not one of them.
This essentially means that only if you come from Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Chile, Georgia, Kosovo, Mongolia, North Macedonia and Serbia, the Swedish authorities will assume that you can seek protection from the authorities in your home country.
All migrants from another country should therefore be assessed on a case-by-case basis. The The Swedish Migration Agency said that if you have “serious reasons why you cannot obtain protection from the authorities of your home country and why your home country cannot be considered safe for you as an individual”, the authorities should not be able to refuse entry.
However, this page was last updated in July 2021 – more than a year before the new government took power.
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Oxfam: “Sweden suffers from high levels of inequality”
Whatever the reason for Tat’s expulsion may really be, the attitude in Sweden to migration has changed in step with changing demographics. According to WSWS, “roughly a quarter of all Swedish residents were born abroad;” in some circles this has resulted in immigrants being blamed for many of society’s ills – particularly economic issues.
But on closer examination, it becomes clear that privatization in Swedish society has led to an increasing gap in the standard of living between rich and poor, says WSWS.
“The application of labor legislation has created large areas of low-paid insecure employment, not least in sectors such as health care and aged care,” reports WSWS.
In particular, it is the poverty of the more recently arrived migrants that creates some of the social problems often classified as “gang violence”.
WSWS finds that right-wing parties use this to try to justify a tougher migration policy. In areas where many immigrants live, such as in the big cities such as Stockholm and Malmö, unemployment and poverty are “significantly higher than the Swedish average”.
The charity Oxfam confirms these observations. In a recent report on global inequality, Oxfam’s general secretary Suzanne Standfast said that “Sweden is one of the OECD countries where economic inequality has increased the most in recent decades.”
Changes outside Sweden?
As Sweden is now set to take over the rotating EU presidency on 1 January, it remains to be seen whether their current attitude towards immigration can in any way spill over into the EU as a whole.
According to the magazine political analysis PoliticoSweden’s new government may also try to influence the EU’s legislative program: According to PoliticoJimmie Åkesson, the leader of the Sweden Democrats, said during a Riksdag debate earlier this month that he hoped he could “move away from the almost manic idea that [Brussels] should interfere more and more in the politics of the member states.”
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In late November, the leader of the group Socialists and Democrats in the European Parliament, Iratxe Garcia Perez, tweeted after a trip to Stockholm that she expressed her “concern about the negative influence that far-right Sweden Democrats will not only have on the Swedish government, but also the Swedish EU presidency starting in January.”
Although Sweden’s Prime Minister Kristersson is seen as pro-EU and has spoken positively about working with countries across Europe in the past, Åkesson, in contrast, has declared that “every nation and every people in Europe has the right to be master of their own home.”
Because immigration is so central to the Sweden Democrats’ political agenda, said Ann-Cathrine Jungar, political scientist at Södertörn University in Stockholm. Politico that migration would also have a high priority during the Swedish EU presidency.
Brussels will discuss its long-talked-about migration and asylum pact in the next six months, with hopes of having it signed, sealed and delivered in the course of 2023 or early 2024. It is largely expected that Sweden, because of Akesson’s desired direction for the bloc, will try to resist the voluntary split of migrants arrive in the EU’s southern Mediterranean states.
EU Home Affairs Commissioner Ylva Johansson, whose portfolio includes migration issues, and who is Swedish herself, has however dismissed such fears and told. Politico that she has “high expectations of the Swedish government”.
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