The Sweden Democrats have pushed for re-migration for as long as I can remember.
It has been a key part of the party’s integration policy and therefore it is a political victory for the party that the government is now taking a step in that direction. But it is not entirely easy to see how a proposal like this alone can in practice lead to the effects that SD hopes for.
The Sweden Democrats’ program for return migration was heavily debated at the party’s last congress. After voting down the demand for numerical targets for how many people should leave the country, the party decided that there should be an “integration political outer border”
According to SD, anyone who has crossed that line and has not adapted should be helped to return home. This help is to be given in the form of an offer of SEK 350,000 following a model introduced in Denmark. After the government’s investigators advised against this very thing, the government must now conduct a new investigation so that the subsidy can be introduced in 2026.
Produced as charity
It may sound uncontroversial to introduce a grant that is voluntary to receive, and the government representatives presented it today almost as some kind of charity, a kind gesture to people whose lives have not quite turned out as it was supposed to. But the opposition has taken on board the investigator’s objection that a contribution like this risks worsening integration and sending signals that people are unwanted.
The contrast between the hopes that the Tidö parties place on the proposal and the assessments made of how many will use the offer is great. The government is setting aside funds for 2026 that would be enough for 4,000 grant recipients, but the politicians ducked today for all questions about how many they think will be affected. The government’s investigators believe that around 1,300 could conceivably accept the offer. From Denmark, there are around 300 people who re-migrate per year, and then it is often older people who are close to retirement. So it is perhaps reasonable to believe that it will take something more than just friendly offers and large grant amounts to get more people to return.
That’s how it works in Denmark
In Denmark, the municipalities are tasked with repeatedly contacting the unemployed and people with social benefits to remind them that the benefits exist. It has obviously not been enough to get the figures on the number of returnees up, but presumably it is the type of pushback that the Sweden Democrats see ahead of them as having to, even here in Sweden.