Inside Sweden: Our interview with Migration Minister Johan Forssell
The Local's editor Emma Löfgren rounds up the biggest stories of the week in our Inside Sweden newsletter.
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Hej,
On Wednesday morning I happened to spot that Migration Minister Johan Forssell was going to Malmö in southern Sweden, where the majority of our reporters, including deputy editor Becky Waterton, are currently based.
The questions we usually manage to ask Forssell tend to come at the end of a long press conference when he is tired of answering questions from reporters and his press secretary is keen to whisk him off to the next event, so we often don't get a lot of minutes to press him on issues that matter to our readers.
It perhaps sounds counter-intuitive, but when ministers are out of Stockholm, they usually have more time, so Becky called his press secretary to ask if we could get a sit-down interview with the minister on Wednesday afternoon.
The answer was yes – success! So we sent Becky down to Region Skåne's International Office in Malmö, which Forssell was visiting to find out more about their work to help healthcare workers with foreign qualifications have their credentials approved, where she managed to get 15 minutes with him.
She asked readers on LinkedIn if they had any questions for Forssell, and I think managed to put most of them to him. Here's the full interview – and I'd be really interested in hearing your opinions about what he said. Please feel free to comment under the article or send us an email to share your thoughts.
He also confirmed that the government hasn't yet made a formal decision to raise the work permit salary threshold to 100 percent of the median salary. It was already looking pretty obvious that it wasn't going to happen by June 1st anyway, which had been the original plan. Question is: will it happen at all?
You can also listen to some of the interview (and our analysis of what he had to say) in the latest episode of The Local's Sweden in Focus podcast.
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In other news
Sweden is considering making it harder for foreigners to qualify for social insurance, including parental benefits and child support, with an inquiry proposing tougher rules. I dug into what the inquiry actually means for our readers, which turned out to be a more difficult task than I thought.
We also got hold of new figures from the Swedish Migration Agency this week, which suggest that the awarding of citizenships has slowed down radically since the government ordered it to impose stricter security checks at the start of April.
Sweden has launched a number of initiatives in recent months aimed at foreign researchers, but what do researchers themselves think Sweden should be doing to make the country a more attractive choice for academics?
Sweden's ROT deduction, which gives you a discount on household renovations, will go up on May 12th. How does it work, and what else can you get deductions for? We've done our best to explain it in this article.
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Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson just can't catch a break when it comes to his national security advisers, as the latest one quit before even starting his job after the DN daily revealed he had failed to disclose Grindr pictures.
Stockholm officials are hitting back after the US embassy wrote to the city council's planning office, demanding it sign a contract confirming that it does not work to promote diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI).
This week's episode of Sweden in Focus Extra for Membership+ subscribers features an interview with Jamil Walli, a Syrian-Swedish painter and filmmaker.
And finally: The Local's new puzzles are out! Don't miss our crossword, which looks at the week that's just been, and don't miss our new word search either.
Have a great weekend,
Emma Löfgren
Editor, The Local Sweden
Inside Sweden is our weekly newsletter for members which gives you news, analysis and, sometimes, takes you behind the scenes at The Local. It's published each Saturday and with Membership+ you can also receive it directly to your inbox.
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