STOCKHOLM: Sweden granted the lowest number of residence permits to asylum seekers and their relatives on record in 2024, a boost for the right-wing government which pledged on Friday to keep bringing the number down further.
Sweden’s minority government and its backers, the far-right and anti-immigration Sweden Democrats, won the 2022 election on a promise to keep reducing immigration and gang crime, which they say are linked.
Since then it has introduced and proposed several measures to make Sweden less attractive to immigrants, such as making it harder to become a citizen and gain residence permits, less generous rules for bringing family members to Sweden and slashed the number of UNHCR quota immigrants accepted.
According to Swedish Migration Agency data 6,250 asylum seekers and their relatives were given residency permits in 2024, down 42 percent compared to when the government came into power and the lowest number since comparable records began in 1985.
“I think it will need to continue to decrease,” Migration Minister Johan Forssell told a news conference. “We now have a historically low asylum rate, but that should be put in relation to a number of years when it has been at very high levels.”
The number of people in Sweden, who were born abroad has doubled in the past two decades to about a fifth of its 10.5-milion population.
The country recorded a peak of just over 86,000 granted asylum related residency permits in 2016, the year after the migration crisis when 163,000 people sought asylum in Sweden, the highest number per capita in the EU.
Since then Sweden has reversed generous immigration policies, fueled by the rise of the Sweden Democrats, which first made it in to parliament in 2010 but in the last election won 20.5 percent of the vote to become the second-biggest party.
The policies have drawn harsh criticism from human rights groups, which say that the government is falsely making immigrants responsible for Sweden’s problems and risking eroding civil rights and protections.
The government is actively encouraging immigrants to return to their home countries and has earmarked 3 billion Swedish crowns ($269.18 million) for repatriation grants. Starting next year immigrants to Sweden can get 350,000 Swedish crowns to return, up from the current 10,000 crowns.
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Sweden grants lowest ever number of residence permits to asylum seekers in 2024
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Sweden grants lowest ever number of residence permits to asylum seekers in 2024
- “I think it will need to continue to decrease,” Migration Minister Johan Forssell told a news conference
- The number of people in Sweden, who were born abroad has doubled in the past two decades to about a fifth of its 10.5-milion population
European leaders expected to cement support for Ukraine amid Washington pressure to accept deal
BERLIN (AP) — European leaders are expected to cement support for Ukraine Monday as it faces Washington’s pressure to swiftly accept a U.S.-brokered peace deal.
After Sunday’s talks in Berlin between U.S. envoys and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Ukrainian and European officials are set to continue a series of meetings in an effort to secure the continent’s peace and security in the face of an increasingly assertive Russia.
Zelenskyy sat down Sunday with U.S. President Donald Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner in the German federal chancellery in the hopes of bringing the nearly four-year war to a close.
Washington has tried for months to navigate the demands of each side as Trump presses for a swift end to Russia’s war and grows increasingly exasperated by delays. The search for possible compromises has run into major obstacles, including control of Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region, which is mostly occupied by Russian forces.
Zelenskyy on Sunday voiced readiness to drop his country’s bid to join NATO if the U.S. and other Western nations give Kyiv security guarantees similar to those offered to NATO members. But Ukraine continued to reject the U.S. push for ceding territory to Russia.
Putin wants Ukraine to withdraw its forces from the part of the Donetsk region still under its control among the key conditions for peace.
The Russian president also has cast Ukraine’s bid to join NATO as a major threat to Moscow’s security and a reason for launching the full-scale invasion in February 2022. The Kremlin has demanded that Ukraine renounce the bid for alliance membership as part of any prospective peace settlement.
Zelenskyy emphasized that any Western security assurances would need to be legally binding and supported by the U.S. Congress.
‘Pax Americana’ is over
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, who has spearheaded European efforts to support Ukraine alongside French President Emmanuel Macron and U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer, said Saturday that “the decades of the ‘Pax Americana’ are largely over for us in Europe and for us in Germany as well.”
He warned that Putin’s aim is “a fundamental change to the borders in Europe, the restoration of the old Soviet Union within its borders.”
“If Ukraine falls, he won’t stop,” Merz warned during a party conference in Munich.
Macron, meanwhile, vowed Sunday on social platform X that “France is, and will remain, at Ukraine’s side to build a robust and lasting peace — one that can guarantee Ukraine’s security and sovereignty, and that of Europe, over the long term.”
Putin has denied plans to attack any European allies.
After Sunday’s talks in Berlin between U.S. envoys and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Ukrainian and European officials are set to continue a series of meetings in an effort to secure the continent’s peace and security in the face of an increasingly assertive Russia.
Zelenskyy sat down Sunday with U.S. President Donald Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner in the German federal chancellery in the hopes of bringing the nearly four-year war to a close.
Washington has tried for months to navigate the demands of each side as Trump presses for a swift end to Russia’s war and grows increasingly exasperated by delays. The search for possible compromises has run into major obstacles, including control of Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region, which is mostly occupied by Russian forces.
Zelenskyy on Sunday voiced readiness to drop his country’s bid to join NATO if the U.S. and other Western nations give Kyiv security guarantees similar to those offered to NATO members. But Ukraine continued to reject the U.S. push for ceding territory to Russia.
Putin wants Ukraine to withdraw its forces from the part of the Donetsk region still under its control among the key conditions for peace.
The Russian president also has cast Ukraine’s bid to join NATO as a major threat to Moscow’s security and a reason for launching the full-scale invasion in February 2022. The Kremlin has demanded that Ukraine renounce the bid for alliance membership as part of any prospective peace settlement.
Zelenskyy emphasized that any Western security assurances would need to be legally binding and supported by the U.S. Congress.
‘Pax Americana’ is over
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, who has spearheaded European efforts to support Ukraine alongside French President Emmanuel Macron and U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer, said Saturday that “the decades of the ‘Pax Americana’ are largely over for us in Europe and for us in Germany as well.”
He warned that Putin’s aim is “a fundamental change to the borders in Europe, the restoration of the old Soviet Union within its borders.”
“If Ukraine falls, he won’t stop,” Merz warned during a party conference in Munich.
Macron, meanwhile, vowed Sunday on social platform X that “France is, and will remain, at Ukraine’s side to build a robust and lasting peace — one that can guarantee Ukraine’s security and sovereignty, and that of Europe, over the long term.”
Putin has denied plans to attack any European allies.
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