However, even in this model northern state, hostile attitudes towards foreigners and right-wing extremism are increasingly spreading. Refugee shelters are being set on fire, migrants are being persecuted, racism is being preached. The irreconcilable core of aggressive neo-Nazis has declared war on all 'non-Aryans.'
Skeptics explain these trends by the collapse of the renowned Swedish immigration policy, as well as economic processes. According to deputies of the civil opposition in the Riksdag, hostility towards outsiders is a response to segregated suburbs, rising unemployment among foreigners, and the fear of many Swedes of being overrun by foreigners.
A public opinion poll in the summer of 2000 showed that more than half of respondents believe there are too many immigrants in Sweden. Two-thirds indicated that they fear rising crime among foreigners. Even a tenth did not want an increase in the quota for foreigners entering the country.
Swedish migration policy since the mid-1960s has relied on a combination of strictly regulated immigration and a set of benefits that promote integration. Immigration barriers are relatively high, but accepted immigrants receive quite generous assistance: they are surrounded by care and attention – provided with language courses, opportunities for advanced training, housing, and social and economic security.
As long as the number of immigrants was relatively small and the Swedish economy was growing strongly, such a policy did not cause controversy. Since the mid-1980s, a flood of refugees from crisis regions in Asia and the Middle East has hit Sweden with full force – tens of thousands each year. From the Balkans alone, more than 140,000 civil war refugees arrived in the country.
Over the past year, for example, 7,000 refugees from Kosovo received temporary permission to stay in the Kingdom of Sweden. Their visas expire in April of this year. But so far only 2,000 of these refugees have returned home. Meanwhile, stricter checks on asylum seekers have been introduced. This year, the state commission on foreign nationals – the final authority in migration matters – rejected three-quarters of applications. The processing times at the central 'migration agency' have been shortened, and the deportation procedure has been accelerated. Exactly 68% of asylum seekers arrived in Sweden without a passport; the vast majority crossed the border illegally. Over the past year, Sweden granted asylum to 11,241 refugees. According to the UN Refugee Agency (UNHRC), this constitutes 2.6% of all asylum seekers in 22 European countries.
Gradually, in politics and economics, there is a growing understanding that in the future Sweden will need more foreigners. As a government commission recently established, each year for an extended period, 30,000 more immigrants should be accepted to compensate for low birth rates and maintain the status of a prosperous state. This means opening borders to 900,000 immigrants by 2030 – more than a tenth of Sweden's current population.
Thomas LUNDIN,
correspondent of the Stockholm
newspaper 'Svenska Dagbladet'.