After decades of mass immigration, Sweden shows signs of wanting to limit the foreign influx. Malmer Stenergard, who heads the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, recently stated in an interview that migrants were causing significant problems in Sweden. Among them were a failure of assimilation, a strain on public services, and rising crime rates.
During the past twenty yeas the foreign-born population of Sweden has grown from one million to two million out of a current total population of around 10 million. Stenergard said it is now time to “regulate migration.”
She added that “there is a difference in terms of which countries immigrants come from.” Referencing Finnish immigration during the seventies, Stenergard observed that “They are similar to us and quickly blend into society, and it is similar now in the case of Ukrainians.” But in her view, migrants from places like Syria and Afghanistan are different because “we are dealing with lower education and a completely different cultural background. Many of these countries have a different society and different ways of resolving conflicts.”
The Swedish government has proposed in its budget draft for next year a payment to encourage migrants to leave Sweden voluntarily and return to their homelands.
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