June 6, Sweden’s “Flag Day,” has been a public holiday since 2005. Across all the municipalities of the kingdom, ceremonies are held to celebrate new Swedish citizens. In Stockholm, members of the royal family sometimes attend the celebrations. Of all the days of the year, it was this date that the liberal-conservative government and the far right chose to introduce new rules for granting Swedish nationality, which were approved by Parliament on Wednesday, April 29.
More than 100,000 people awaiting a decision will be affected; overnight, their applications for naturalization could be deemed invalid. It does not matter that these foreign-born applicants met all the conditions required at the time they submitted their files, as the new rules will apply retroactively. Making Sweden an exception in Europe, the government refused to include a transition period in the law, despite a request from the Council on Legislation, which reviews bills before they are presented to Parliament.
Becky Waterton, a 32-year-old from Manchester, United Kingdom, who is married to a Swede and is the mother to a Swedish national, is deeply frustrated. She arrived in the Scandinavian kingdom in 2019 and applied for naturalization in April 2024 as soon as she obtained permanent residency. Since then, she has been waiting. Officially, cases must be processed within six months; in reality, it takes around 56 months to receive a decision, according to immigration service statistics.
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