EXPLAINED: What do we know
about Sweden’s plans to
withdraw permanent residency?
The government's coalition agreement pledges
to abolish "the institution of permanent
residence permits", and recent comments from
government officials suggest plans to convert
permanent residence permits to temporary
permits. How would this work and who could be
affected?
Photo: Janerik Henriksson/TT
What is the government planning on doing?
:
The exact text of the Sweden Democrat-backed government’s
agreement, the Tidö Agreement, states that “asylum-related
residence permits should be temporary and the institution of
permanent residence permits should be phased out to be replaced
by a new system based on the immigrant’s protection status”.
It further states that “an inquiry will look into the circumstances
under which existing permanent residence permits can be
converted, for example through giving affected permit holders
realistic possibilities to gain citizenship before a specified deadline.
These changes should occur within the framework of basic legal
principles.”
What does this mean?
Until recently, it has been unclear whether this applies to all
immigrants or just those in Sweden as asylum seekers. However, in a
message to SVT prior to their ’30 minuter’ news programme on
November 17th, a member of the Migration Minister’s team wrote
that “an investigation will look into in what circumstances existing
permanent residence permits (permanent uppehållstillstånd), could
be turned into temporary residence permits”.
This suggests that this could affect all immigrants in Sweden with
residence or work permits under Swedish rules rather than EU rules
(but not those with residence status or right of residence, which
apply to Brits here before Brexit and people here under EU rules,
respectively).
Card, status, or permit? The different types of permanent
residence document in Sweden
:
This means that, if this were to become law, people with permanent
residence permits (PUT or permanent uppehållstillstånd), may have
to continue to fulfil the requirements of their residence or work
permit until they can gain Swedish citizenship – which would take
between three and five years under current rules, or eight years
under new proposals.
This means that people who currently have permanent residence
permits could be forced to pass language or culture tests, fulfil
financial requirements or even give up their other citizenship if they
come from a country which doesn’t allow dual citizenship if they
wish to remain in Sweden permanently.
It also means that people who are unable to get citizenship for
whatever reason – for example if they had a black mark on their
credit record or cannot afford the maintenance requirement – would
be forced to renew their temporary residence permit indefinitely,
ensuring they fulfilled the requirements each time they renew.
Foreigners trapped by Swedish work permit delays call for
visa relief
With current permits lasting for around two years at a time, long
waiting times of over two years in some cases, and those waiting for
a permit regularly barred from leaving the country and returning, this
could effectively trap immigrants in Sweden as they constantly
renew their residence permits to stay in the country.
When will these changes come into force?
The short answer to this question is “probably a few years, but we
can’t be sure”. The long answer to this question requires a bit of
explanation into how the Swedish legislative system works.
EXPLAINED: How a new law gets made in Sweden
:
First off, a law needs to go through six stages before it can be voted
on in parliament. These are the directive, inquiry, final inquiry report,
consultation, and draft bill stages, after which bills need to be
checked and adapted by the lagrådet, or Council on Legislation.
By far, the most time-consuming stage of this process is the inquiry,
which can take years, depending on the issue. It’s rarely shorter than
a year, and can be much longer (for example, the inquiry in to
introducing tests on language and cultural knowledge for
citizenship took over a year and a half. It was started in October 2019
and ended in July 2021).
Another stage which can be time-consuming is the consultation
stage, which is often around 3 months. But, again, this can be
shorter or longer.
The other stages in the legislative process usually take place
relatively quickly. But as a general rule, it takes about two years from
a law being proposed (as in, formally proposed by parliament issuing
a directive), to it being voted on in parliament, so we can expect to
see these laws reaching the vote in parliament around the end of
2024, at the earliest.
Some laws take longer. The proposed law on introducing language
and cultural knowledge tests for citizenship was proposed three
years ago at the time this article was written in November 2022 and
has still not been approved by parliament.
The parties in the right-wing bloc behind the Tidö Agreement have
said that they aim to get most of their policy through within the
current mandate period, meaning that they’re hoping these
proposals will become law before the next election in September
2026.
Might the proposal be blocked?
:
In his interview with state broadcaster SVT, Ribbenvik said that if he
had permanent residency in Sweden he would be “extremely
worried”, indicating that he feels there is a real chance that holders
may end up seeing their residency made temporary.
But the passage in the Tidö Agreement saying that any changes
would have to “occur within the framework of basic legal principles”
could lead the investigation to conclude that abolishing permanent
residency or converting it to temporary residency is not possible.
Kristoffer Jutvik, a researcher at Linköping University who has
researched the impact of the 2016 shift to temporary residency for
those granted asylum, is sceptical over the legality of the proposed
change.
“When I read about the proposal to convert all permanent residence
permits to temporary my immediate thought was that it is impossible
under the current regulations,” he told The Local. “According to the
Swedish Migration Agency, a permanent residence permit can only
be withdrawn if it was granted based on deliberately false
information or following the conviction of certain crimes. However, I
don’t really know what kinds of changes the investigation will
propose and I think that no one really does.”
Jutvik said that generally within Sweden’s system, you can’t
retroactively withdraw something which has already been granted to
people.
“Basically, within public service if you have a positive decision about
something, it’s hard to revoke that. It’s just a central tenet of the
welfare system and Swedish administrative law
(förvaltningslagstiftning).”
:
Even if the investigation does judge that such a change is possible
under such principles, the government pushes ahead with the
:
proposal and parliament votes it into force, the change might then be
challenged at an EU level.