Sweden wants to narrow path to citizenship

Sweden's government said on Tuesday it wanted to toughen the rules for obtaining Swedish nationality, with a government probe recommending "honest living" as a prerequisite.

It also recommended extending the required duration of time spent in the country prior to obtaining citizenship.

To become Swedish, a foreigner would have to live in Sweden for eight years -- as opposed to the current five -- pass a test on Swedish society and values, and do a language exam, according to the probe ordered by the centre-right government in 2023.

"Citizenship must be earned, not be handed out unconditionally," Migration Minister Johan Forssell said in a post on Instagram.

Forssell told a press conference that citizenship also helped tie people of disparate backgrounds together under "a common Swedish identity".

"This is particularly important at a time when Sweden has welcomed hundreds of thousands of people from many parts of the world in recent years," he said.

Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson's centre-right minority government, which is backed in parliament by the anti-immigration Sweden Democrats, has introduced ever harsher curbs since coming to power in 2022.

In concrete terms, this would mean it would be harder for a person who has committed a misdemeanour or a crime, or who has unpaid debts, to obtain Swedish nationality, said Kirsi Laakso Utvik, who led the probe.

Human rights organisation Civil Rights Defenders was critical of the proposal.

"Research shows that tougher requirements for citizenship do not increase the incentives for integration, but rather contribute to the exclusion of a growing group of people who find themselves in the country for a long time wi thout the basic rights of citizenship," the organisation's legal director John Stauffer told AFP.

The probe's conclusions will now be referred to various authorities and concerned parties for review, before the government drafts a bill.

The probe recommended that the new law come into effect on June 1, 2026.

Sweden once considered itself a haven for the war-weary and persecuted but has over the years struggled to integrate many of its newcomers.

Recent measures introduced to reduce immigration included granting of only temporary residence permits to asylum seekers, tightening family reunification criteria and raising income requirements for non-EU citizens seeking work visas.