Latest news with #BeckyWaterton
Local Sweden
4 days ago
- Politics
- Local Sweden
Red cottage nightmares, and is Sweden's support for Israel crumbling?
This week: Sweden calls for sanctions on Israeli ministers, and why are the Sweden Democrats promoting cookie-cutter 'Sweden houses'? For Membership+ subscribers: Will cash every make a comeback in Sweden? And what is the Migration Agency telling us about citizenship processing? Advertisement In this week's episode we ask why Swedish politicians are becoming more critical of Israel over the war in Gaza. We also discuss the government's plans to develop new kinds of pre-approved houses to make it easier for people to buy their own homes. For Membership+ subscribers we talk about what it's like trying to get by without a bank-card in a mostly cash-free country. Finally, we get our teeth into what the Migration Agency is saying about in-person meetings with citizenship applicants and changing how it prioritises which cases to process. Host Paul O'Mahony is joined this week by regular panelists Becky Waterton and Richard Orange. Advertisement Here are links to some of the topics discussed in the episode: Sweden and Israel Politics Money Swedish citizenship You can listen to the free episode here: Or follow Sweden in Focus wherever you listen to podcasts. Advertisement Get Membership+ to listen to all The Local's podcasts Sign up now and get early, ad-free access to a full-length episode of the Sweden in Focus podcast every weekend, as well as Sweden in Focus Extra every Wednesday. Please visit the link that applies to you and get a 40% discount on Membership+ Read more about Membership+ in our help centre. Already have Membership+ but not receiving all the episodes? Go to the podcast tab on your account page to activate your subscription. Advertisement
Local Sweden
28-05-2025
- Local Sweden
'If you tick the boxes in Sweden it's smooth, otherwise it's challenging'
This week's episode of Sweden in Focus Extra for Membership+ subscribers features an interview with Richard Mason, a postdoctoral researcher who moved from the UK to study rivers in Sweden and never looked back. Advertisement In this week's episode we get insights into making a successful career in Sweden from Richard Mason, a scientist from Wales who now lives in Umeå where he researches rivers and their role in biodiversity. He spoke recently with The Local's deputy editor Becky Waterton about his move to Sweden and why it's a great place to be for his particular area of study. He also gives his advice for other researchers learning the ropes in Sweden, as well as talking about his experience of navigating the Swedish labour market, and why he loves living in northern Sweden. Membership+ subscribers can listen to the interview in the latest episode of Sweden in Focus Extra, out May 28th. READ ALSO: Get Membership+ to listen to all The Local's podcasts Sweden in Focus Extra is a podcast for The Local's Membership+ subscribers. Sign up to Membership+ now and get early, ad-free access to a full-length episode of the Sweden in Focus podcast every weekend, as well as Sweden in Focus Extra every Wednesday. Please visit the link that applies to you and get a 40% discount on Membership+ Read more about Membership+ in our help centre. Already have Membership+ but not receiving all the episodes? Go to the podcast tab on your account page to activate your subscription on a podcast platform. If you prefer to listen on the site, you can find all episodes at the bottom of our podcast page.
Local Sweden
24-05-2025
- Politics
- Local Sweden
Inside Sweden: Sweden's citizenship news is bittersweet
The Local's deputy editor Becky Waterton rounds up the biggest stories of the week in our Inside Sweden newsletter. Advertisement This week has been a big week for Swedish citizenship applicants, with two big pieces of news. The first is that Sweden's citizenship freeze is effectively over, and the Migration Agency confirmed to The Local on Friday that it has already started sending out letters calling for applicants to book appointments at its offices. The second big piece of news is something a lot of our readers will be very happy about – the agency has also changed the order in which it processes cases. Instead of focusing on simpler cases or cases where a request to conclude has been granted, it will now focus on cases in chronological order. For me, this news is bittersweet. That's not only for selfish reasons, like the fact that it will probably affect me negatively, and could even mean that my application is not granted by the time the new rules come into force next summer. Last week, I felt like I was days or weeks away from citizenship. Now, it feels like I could be waiting for years. Having said that, I've only been waiting since September, which is nothing compared to some applicants who have been waiting for almost six years. I welcome the agency's new prioritisation and see it as a sign that they may, finally, be listening to criticism. It's only fair that I take my place in the queue behind others who have had their applications delayed for no clear reason. Despite this, the changes do not go far enough. They do not address the issue of people being stuck in Sweden for months without their passport or permanent residency card after sending them off to the Migration Agency, with no information on when they will get them back. This uncertainty leads to missed holidays, missed weddings and funerals and missed work trips, and essentially leaves us trapped in the country due to nothing but bureaucracy. Advertisement Granted, it makes the system more transparent – at least you know your application won't be arbitrarily placed in a 'too complicated to process right now' pile – but I doubt it will get waiting times anywhere close to the six-month goal, especially with the added requirement of in-person identity checks. It also, and perhaps most crucially, does nothing to ensure that those of us who fulfil current requirements will have our applications processed in time before the new rules come into force for all applications, not just new ones, in July next year. With waiting times so long – 75 percent of recent applications were concluded within 23 months – is it even worth applying now if you don't meet the future requirements? How can you meet them when it's not possible to even take the obligatory language or culture tests yet? Now I – and many others – find myself in the strange position of hoping that the Migration Agency either approves my case within the next year, or that the process is so delayed that I end up having lived in the country for long enough to qualify under the new rules by the time I reach the top of the pile. Advertisement In other news Swedish electric car battery maker Northvolt, which filed for bankruptcy in March, will stop production at its main factory in Sweden in June, the court-appointed bankruptcy trustee said earlier this week. Fifteen new flight routes are launching from Sweden this summer, including destinations in France, Spain, Turkey, Iceland and Greece. Here's a full list. Staying on the topic of flights, cabin crew on multiple airlines will strike in Sweden from Monday, if unions and airlines are unable to come to an agreement. GAMES: Have you tried The Local's games for Membership+ subscribers yet? We've got a new crossword and word search puzzle out now Sweden's work permit salary threshold is currently set as 80 percent of the most recent median salary figures, which are from June last year. When are these figures going to be updated, increasing the threshold? Two of Sweden's largest game companies, Massive Entertainment and Sharkmob, want to join together with other companies in the gaming industry to create a specialised collective bargaining agreement. Sweden has approved a law to criminalise buying sex online – including personalised digital content, like that offered on sites such as OnlyFans. Here's what it means. Advertisement Finally, our editor Emma Löfgren is running an experiment. She wants to see if she can get The Local's members to help her recruit 100 new members by the end of the month. Read her LinkedIn post here and if you have a friend, colleague or family member who might find our journalism useful, please ask them to sign up via this link. Now let's see if this actually works... Have a good weekend, Becky Waterton Deputy 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.
Local Sweden
17-05-2025
- Politics
- Local Sweden
Inside Sweden: If you want citizenship to mean something, this is not how to do it
The Local's deputy editor Becky Waterton rounds up the biggest stories of the week in our Inside Sweden newsletter. Advertisement Anyone who has been following our work here at The Local will undoubtedly know that I, along with more than 88,000 others, have a pending application for Swedish citizenship. It's impossible to be sure, but from what I can tell, my citizenship application is in the final stages. The Migration Agency asked for my passport and permanent residency card at the end of April. I sent them both in and my passport was sent back a few days later. As far as I'm aware, this means that they expect to approve my application – otherwise they would have sent my card back, too. I've only been waiting since September last year, and I'm lucky that my case is relatively straightforward. I come from a stable country, I have an accepted form of ID, and I've had a full time, permanent job for the past few years. Despite my relatively short wait, I think about my citizenship application all the time. I check my emails constantly for updates. I've spent hours in citizenship-related Facebook groups and subreddits, googling different combinations of search terms to try and figure out when people who seem to have a similar case to mine were granted citizenship. I've logged in to the Migration Agency website so often – even though they wouldn't update anything there without also sending me an email – that my browser has started suggesting it as a shortcut when I open a new window. You could probably classify my behaviour as obsessive. This week, The Local broke the story that the Migration Agency was only able to approve six applications for citizenship through naturalisation in April, because they've been ordered to carry out in-person identity checks for all applicants, but have no system in place to do so. That's a decrease of 99.8 percent on the 3,234 applications approved in March. Advertisement The 88,000 of us that are waiting for their applications to be approved have never been informed of this, never been told that our applications have essentially been put on pause with no clear date on which they will be resumed. A few years ago, delays in passport processing – at one point the closest appointments were six months away – made headlines, with Swedes complaining that they'd had to miss out on their summer trips to Thailand. For those of us waiting for citizenship, six months is nothing. Many of us were stuck in the country for longer than that while we waited for the Migration Agency to renew our residency permits. Some people have been waiting for years. A six month delay for passport renewals caused uproar. But a citizenship delay, on top of already long waiting times? You could hear a pin drop. Now that the agency has my permanent residency card, I don't even know if I can nip over to Denmark for a day trip without it. Will I miss the family reunion I have planned for the UK in July? That wedding in September? Those concert tickets for London in February? Can I leave Sweden to go back to the UK and renew my daughter's British passport next summer? And I'm lucky enough to have a job where I don't have to travel. Swedish politicians keep saying that they're tightening up the rules because 'citizenship should mean something', but I don't think they understand that anyone who has gone through this waiting game understands that perfectly well. We don't just risk missing a summer getaway to Thailand, we have to plan our entire lives around our ongoing citizenship applications. Advertisement Citizenship is the only thing we can think about. For the government, it's a bargaining chip they can use to make it look like they're tough on immigration, withholding it from people who meet all the requirements until they manage to change the rules so we don't qualify anymore. We meet the requirements. We've lived here long enough, we've paid the fee. Changing the rules to delay citizenship and try to take it away from us cheapens it, and shows that you have no idea how much it means to us. If you want citizenship to mean something, this is not the way you do it. You can hear me and my colleagues go into more detail on the citizenship freeze in this week's Sweden in Focus podcast. In other news Police in Sweden said in a press conference on Friday that there was no indication the gunman behind the Örebro campus attack in February held "xenophobic or radical views" and that he likely chose his victims at random. In a new report, the Swedish Association of University Teachers and Researchers (SULF) has slammed the government's 'exploitative revolving door' migration policy, arguing that it harms international researchers and denies them stability in the country. Advertisement Proposed new rules could lead to a sixfold increase in the number of foreigners sentenced to deportation for committing crimes in Sweden, a government-commissioned inquiry believes. GAMES: Have you tried The Local's games for Membership+ subscribers yet? We've got a new crossword and word search puzzle out now The Eurovision final is set to take place on Saturday night. Groans and giggles typically greet voters at the contest, loved and mocked for its kitsch music and seemingly partisan outcomes. But what are the voting patterns, and what external factors help explain them? The Geological Survey of Sweden (SGU) has warned that large parts of southern Sweden are at risk of a groundwater shortage after a particularly dry autumn and spring. What does this mean, and how can you prepare for it? A new report from Public Housing Sweden has shown that waiting times for first-hand rentals in Stockholm county are the longest in the country, at over 28 years ‒ that's more than four times as long as the next-highest region. The same report revealed that while some areas have long queues, others have empty apartments ready to move into straight away. Finally, we have another My Swedish Career interview, this time with Syrian-Swedish journalist and filmmaker Jamil Walli, who moved to Sweden in 2013 as an exchange student, later moving into filmmaking. We spoke to him about his life in Sweden, as well as how the attitude towards immigrants has changed since he first arrived. Have a good weekend, Becky Waterton Deputy 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.
Local Sweden
30-04-2025
- Politics
- Local Sweden
How immigration is fuelling the growth of the Catholic Church in Sweden
This week's episode of Sweden in Focus Extra for Membership+ subscribers features an interview with Magdalena Dahlborg, an editor for a Swedish-language Catholic magazine. Advertisement How did the Catholic Church in Sweden recover from the brink of extinction and what role does it play in Swedish public life today? The Local's deputy editor Becky Waterton raised these questions in a conversion she had recently with Magdalena Dahlborg about the history of the Catholic Church in Sweden. Dahlborg is the author of a book on Catholicism and an editor for the Swedish Catholic magazine Signum. In this episode she talks about the huge role immigrants have played in the growth of the church in recent decades, how important she thinks the church can be for helping immigrants to integrate in Sweden, and why she hopes the Swedish Cardinal Anders Arborelius isn't named as the new pope. Membership+ subscribers can listen to the interview in the latest episode of Sweden in Focus Extra, out April 30th. READ ALSO: Get Membership+ to listen to all The Local's podcasts Sweden in Focus Extra is a podcast for The Local's Membership+ subscribers. Sign up to Membership+ now and get early, ad-free access to a full-length episode of the Sweden in Focus podcast every weekend, as well as Sweden in Focus Extra every Wednesday. Please visit the link that applies to you and get a 40% discount on Membership+ Read more about Membership+ in our help centre. Already have Membership+ but not receiving all the episodes? Go to the podcast tab on your account page to activate your subscription on a podcast platform. If you prefer to listen on the site, you can find all episodes at the bottom of our podcast page.
