– It is necessary to break the exclusion that is so harmful. Hundreds of thousands of children do not get to see their parents go to work in the morning. Then it is the line of work and the line of language that apply, said Johan Pehrson in Agenda’s party leader debate.
However, Left leader Nooshi Dadgostar was not impressed.
– We think the Swedish line of work must be re-established. It is based on working towards a good social security fund, good health insurance and good wages. You have ruined all that. You want to make the unemployment insurance and health insurance worse, she answered Pehrson.
“Us and Them”
The Center Party’s party leader Muharrem Demirok agreed that demands can create conditions for entering society, but at the same time said that the integration policy that the government is now pursuing is based on suspicion and that it creates an “us and them”.
And when Jakob Forssmed from the Christian Democrats talked about preventive work to improve integration, the center leader got angry and accused the government of actually cutting back on the front line of integration, social workers, teachers and field assistants.
– Where are the efforts. In the government’s policy, you only talk about the tough ones.
“The Only Way”
The Sweden Democrats’ Jimmie Åkesson also believed that the new path the government has embarked on is necessary.
– We have a fantastic school and welfare that you are offered as soon as you set foot in this country. Yet it looks like it does. Could it be that we need to do something beyond what you other parties have been trying to do for decades. I mean that the requirements-based integration policy is the only way forward.
Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson (M) also defended the new requirements-based integration policy.
– The expectation to learn Swedish, the expectation to support oneself, the expectation to move to where there might be a job. We have honestly missed all of this in Sweden, he said.