20-05-2025
Swedish MP slams citizenship freeze as 'what the government wanted'
The Green Party's immigration spokesperson has attacked the government for the 'traumatic' freeze in Swedish citizenship approvals, claiming that rather than being a side effect of onerous new security checks ordered in January, it was the intended result.
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Annika Hirvonen, the immigration spokesperson for the Green Party, said that she feared that Migration Minister Johan Forssell would not be concerned by the near total stop in awards of citizenship in standard cases, a drop The Local was first to report on last week.
"I think that this is what they wanted," she told The Local in an interview. "I think the fundamental problem is that the intention behind these new rules seems to be to delay the processing of citizenships, and not primarily because they fear some people might have security problems."
In April, just six individuals were granted Swedish citizenship via naturalisation – the principal route for adult foreign nationals outside the Nordic region – a steep decline from the 3,234 approvals recorded in March.
EXPLAINED: Eight key questions to understand Sweden's citizenship freeze
The Migration Agency told The Local that it has been unable to approve standard citizenship applications for over a month because they have yet to set up routines for the in-person identification, a key part of the security checks the government ordered.
The freeze is affecting applicants from all countries, contradicting a pledge from Migration Minister Johan Forssell to The Local's readers in January that work permit holders and people from countries without security risks would be unaffected.
Hirvonen said that it should have been obvious from the start that the new security checks being ordered would have an impact on most applicants.
"I'm not sure if he's being misleading on purpose or if he just doesn't really understand how these processes actually work," she said. "If you put into place intentional obstacles on processes that are for everyone, of course it's going to affect everyone."
In January, the government ordered the Migration Agency to carry out more thorough security checks of Swedish citizenship applicants and in April the agency said in a forecast that the checks would reduce the number of citizenships it would be able to process this year.
The new security requirements came after the leaders of the three government parties in November wrote a joint article together with the leader of the far-right Sweden Democrats, pledging to take action to "prevent more Swedish citizenships being issued" until new, tougher citizenship rules come into force in the summer of 2026.
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Hirvonen in January reported the government to the parliamentary Committee on the Constitution over the new demands, arguing that the government was guilty of "ministerial rule", or ministerstyre by seeking to influence the day-to-day decisions of a government agency on individual cases. Ministerial rule violates the Instrument of Government, part of Sweden's constitution.
The sudden drop in approvals in April, she told The Local, gave further support to the argument that what the government had done in practice was order the agency to delay the processing of citizenships.
"In my opinion, this really speaks to the fact that there are aspects of this that aren't according to the Swedish constitution," she said.
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As a majority of MPs on the committee represent parties either in or supporting the government, she said it was uncertain whether the committee would censure the government. But she said in her opinion, it certainly should do.
"It is extremely problematic that the intention pronounced was to delay citizenship applications so that rules that have to do with totally different things, not security, can be put into place for as many people as possible."
The Local has contacted the migration minister's office for a comment.
