On the 6th of June, many new Swedish citizens participate in citizenship ceremonies that are arranged around the country. One who has been invited to such a ceremony to celebrate her new citizenship is Sonja Lagström from Finland.
Lagström moved to Sweden four years ago and became a Swedish citizen last year. At the same time as she became a Swedish citizen, she also became a dual citizen.
– If the criterion for obtaining Swedish citizenship had been that I would have had to renounce my Finnish citizenship, I would not have wanted to change. Then I would have kept my Finnish citizenship, says Lagström.
The effect of dual citizenship
She is not alone in this reasoning. Statistics from Statistics Norway show that the number of Finns who have obtained Swedish citizenship has almost doubled since Finland began allowing dual citizenship in 2003.
A couple of years before, approximately 1,500 Swedish citizenships were granted annually to Finns. As of 2003, the average has risen to approximately 2,400 citizenships per year.
Number of people granted Swedish citizenship in the last two decades. The years when the respective country allowed dual citizenship are marked. Photo: Henrik Crona, SVT Nyhetsgrafik
Sweden was at the forefront of introducing the possibility of dual citizenship in 2001. However, this had an impact later when other countries also began to explore this possibility. Today, all Nordic countries allow dual citizenship.
The Norwegians excel
Trends similar to that for Finns are also seen among Norwegians, Danes and Icelanders. In the years when dual citizenship was allowed in each country, a clear increase in the number of Swedish citizenships obtained by all Nordic nationalities can be seen.
The Norwegians stand out the most in the statistics. When Norway allowed dual citizenship in 2020, a full five times more Norwegians received Swedish citizenship compared to 2019.
In the video, Sonja Lagström, who moved from Finland to Sweden, tells why she decided to apply for Swedish citizenship and what the new citizenship means to her.