SD to go to the polls on revoking passports

Published December 17, 2024 at 6:21 p.m.

Domestic. The Sweden Democrats want to make it possible to revoke citizenship even for immigrants born in Sweden – provided that they have dual citizenship. In practice, however, the proposal is impossible to implement because it conflicts with the EU Charter, which is the common constitution of the EU countries.

Share the article

TwittraShare

The Sweden Democrats continue to sharpen their tone on the issue of immigration and citizenship – and want to go to the polls on the promise of revoking citizenship.

In an interview with Aftonbladet, party leader Jimmie Åkesson now announces that he wants to see opportunities to revoke Swedish citizenship even for people born in Sweden – if they have dual citizenship.

– In principle, I have no problem with a person who has dual citizenship but was born in Sweden and has obtained their Swedish citizenship in that way being able to get rid of it, says Åkesson.

He emphasizes that this applies specifically to people with dual citizenship. According to the Constitution and international law, it is not permitted to make someone stateless.

But Sweden is also very severely restricted by its EU membership, which takes the ban a step further. In practice, EU rules only allow the withdrawal of citizenship in certain specific exceptional cases, which rarely apply to third-world immigrants.

According to a ruling by the European Court of Justice, dual citizenship can usually be withdrawn – but only for immigrants who come from other EU countries.

According to the same ruling, the citizenship of third world immigrants may only be revoked in purely exceptional cases, when it would not “disproportionately” infringe on the immigrant's right to “private life”, “family life”, “housing”, etc. If the immigrant has children, revocation is in practice prohibited because “the best interests of the child” should always “come first”.

According to the ruling, it is therefore in practice impossible to revoke citizenship for almost all typical problem immigrants unless they first leave the EU.

The Swedish constitution currently does not allow citizens living in Sweden to lose their citizenship. However, the Swedish government has appointed an inquiry to review these rules, including to be able to revoke citizenship in the event of serious crimes. The inquiry will be presented in mid-January.

Åkesson describes citizenship as something that must be “earned”.

Remigration continues to receive a major focus in the Sweden Democrats' policy. In addition to increased remigration grants, the party wants to introduce tougher requirements for access to Sweden's welfare system. Among other things, Åkesson proposes a grant cap to limit how much a family can receive in total grants. According to him, this will create incentives for so-called voluntary remigration.

However, Jimmie Åkesson emphasizes in the interview with Aftonbladet that “voluntary remigration” is “a long-term project”. And a quick and non-voluntary remigration would clearly contradict the ban on remigration in Article 19 of the EU Charter, which states in short:

“Collective expulsions shall be prohibited.”

According to the EU Treaty, it is indeed permitted to leave the EU. But the Sweden Democrats no longer want to leave the EU and it is therefore highly unclear how the promise to revoke citizenship can be fulfilled in practice.