The Sweden Democrats are clearly disappointed with the report on return migration that was presented to the government today. The investigation’s proposal is not sharp enough for the party, which now intends to work directly in the government office to sharpen the proposal.
The party’s migration policy spokesperson Ludvig Aspling writes to DN:
“The investigator does not make any suggestions that we can handle further.”
Difficult situation for the government
This is an unusual and rather awkward situation for the government. They will now have to work on the proposal in the government office, in matters where the government is probably not completely in agreement among themselves.
It will take time and effort, and will also be accompanied by sneers and taunts from the opposition, who are given ample opportunities to bombard the governing parties with quotes from this investigation, which in practice distance themselves from the idea of increasing emigration from Sweden through greatly increased contributions to people who want to return to their countries of origin.
Clear adversity for SD
According to the investigator Joachim Ruist, the reason why the investigation was not able to deliver what the government wanted is that the methods to increase emigration that the government calls for in the assignment to the investigator cannot be found. It is only in Denmark that today substantial contributions are paid to return migration, and there no major evaluations of the system have been made.
For the Sweden Democrats, this is a clear setback. They have long had re-migration as one of their most important issues, they have wanted to achieve improved integration by encouraging those who are most difficult to integrate to leave the country, and they were prepared to spend a lot of money on it.
Now the investigation they managed to get through has instead delivered arguments to the opposing side and also weakened SD’s argument that the proposals are feasible. I guess we will hear more criticism of the investigation from the Sweden Democrats in the coming weeks.