This petition wants your help to stop new Swedish citizenship rules applying retroactively
Patrick Henry Gallen, an American futurist based in Malmö, launched the "No retroactivity in the new citizenship law" petition on Monday, with the online appeal receiving nearly 1000 signatures in the first day.
The petition calls for Migration Minister Johan Forssell, the parliament's justice committee, the government and the parliament to follow the advice of the judge Kirsi Laakso Utvik, who led the inquiry into tightening citizenship rules.
Utvik called for a "transition period", with applications submitted before the new rules are proposed to come into effect in June 2026 assessed under the previous citizenship rules.
Forssell, however, last week said that he intended to ignore this advice and make the new rules apply to all citizenship applications outstanding when they come into force, regardless of when the initial application was made.
Respecting her call for a transition period, Gallen wrote in a post on LinkedIn, would "ensure that tens of thousands of upstanding people are not denied crucial democratic rights and that Sweden remains a country that respects the rule of law and that supports much-needed foreign talent".
Pushing ahead with the current plan, he continued, would mean that tens of thousands of applicants, many of whom who have already been waiting more than three years for a decision from Sweden's Migration Agency could be forced to wait an additional seven to eight years.
The impact would, he warned, be felt by Swedish companies, who are already seeing skilled labour leave the country to go and work in countries such as Germany.
"While we can't currently identify the specific reasons people are leaving, several recently published articles have identified lack of long-term work opportunities (in part due to a botched tightening of work permit requirements that might soon be rescinded or significantly re-loosened) and increasingly strict requirements for citizenship," he wrote.
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