In their coalition agreement signed on October 14, 2022, the Swedish right and the far right signaled that they wanted to explore the possibility of deporting foreign citizens due to “misconduct”. “Everyone in Sweden who enjoys Swedish hospitality is obliged to respect the core values [du pays] and not respecting the population in their actions,” the text says.
Said and done. On Tuesday, November 21, Conservative Immigration Minister Maria Malmer Stenergard, flanked by representatives of the three other majority parties, announced that her government intended to include “an honorable lifestyle” among the conditions for granting a residence permit to keep it. “For integration to be successful, people who want to live in Sweden must respect basic standards and live honestly and decently,” she said.
A former judge, Robert Schött, was commissioned to assess the relevant criteria and the project’s conformity with European legislation. It must submit its conclusions before January 15, 2025. The government’s ambition is clear: if a legal conviction can justify the withdrawal of a residence permit, the government wants to expand the list of reasons that can lead to deportation beyond criminal offenses. to include “a dishonest lifestyle.”
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To outline this nebulous concept, liberal Equal Opportunities Minister Paulina Brandberg provided some examples. She mentioned violations of “compliance with the rules”, including benefit fraud, abuse of the social protection system, but also debts “to the company or an individual”. Another criterion: connections to or affiliation with “criminal networks, clans, violent or extremist organizations or environments that threaten Sweden’s core values.”
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But that’s not all: “dishonest” provision of one’s own needs – for example through illegal work – could also lead to the suspension of the residence permit, as could the “abuse of illegal substances”, even if the immigration minister assured that situations of “dependence” would arise “taken into account”. Mentioned in the coalition agreement, prostitution does not appear in the project: “We are not concerned with expelling vulnerable people, but with those who exploit them,” assured Ms. Malmer Stenergard.
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