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Under the current conservative government, in place since 2022 and supported by the cooperation party Sweden Democrats, Sweden is now in the process of radically changing its migration policy. After decades of being a country where it was morally forbidden to question the principle of a generous reception of refugees, Sweden has now the intention of becoming a country applying as strict a refugee policy as the EU regulations allow. In fact, this has already had an effect. Even before the new laws have come into place, the percentage of alleged refugees seeking to come to Sweden has dropped significantly. As a comparison, we can see that the number of asylum seekers in 2016 amounted to 28,939. In 2019, the figure was 21,958 and in 2023 – after the new government took office – 12,644 (including refuges from Ukraine).
This is a major accomplishment for the Sweden Democrats, i.e. for the party that for a long time has demanded significantly tighter migration to Sweden and that supports the new government even if it is not part of it. It is also a success that the number of asylum seekers decreases even before the new laws come into place because it means that the rumor is spreading among refugee smugglers and potential asylum seekers that Sweden is no longer a country to which one should apply.
But does this mean that immigration to Sweden is over? Not at all. It will certainly decrease, but it is still the case that Sweden’s liberal-conservative government wants immigration. It is still the case that Sweden’s government mocks Sweden Democrats and their voters when they talk about limiting the number of people who want to come to their country. What has happened is that the focus has changed. Now liberal parties want to attract “competence”. Now it is suddenly so important that the Swedish business community gets access to an international competence that we apparently do not have in Sweden. Therefore, they now claim it is important that Sweden attracts well-educated people from all over the world in order to strengthen Sweden’s professional competence and innovation capacity. Now they say that of course we should have immigration to Sweden, but we must have the right immigration. People should come to Sweden and contribute.
This is a difficult subject. Europe and the West have built their prosperity on freedom and competition. And within Europe we have free movement, and we think that competition and free trade are fundamentally good. And it is, too. But that doesn’t mean we can’t discuss the topic or that we shouldn’t have a sensible and conservative regulation of a global labor migration. Mobility and competition cannot be values that stand above everything else in the same way that the concepts of religion, nation or tradition should not stand above everything else either. Europe must build its prosperity on freedom and competition, but we must also nurture our continent and our countries by adopting a sensible and balanced attitude to freedom and competition. It is also important that we maintain our freedom of expression. All those people in Europe who are now skeptical of large-scale labor immigration must also be allowed to use the freedom of expression that we take for granted. In the Reykjavik Declaration, we can read that European countries must work to: “ensure the right to FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION, including academic freedom and artistic freedom, to hold OPINIONS and to receive and impart information and ideas, both online and offline.”
Previously, Sweden had almost unlimited labor immigration. It was the former neoliberal government led by Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt between 2006 and 2014 that, through an agreement with the Swedish Environmental Party, opened the possibility of recruiting low paid work force from all over the world. People were exploited, crime at work increased, the so-called shadow society spread and the low-educated and resource-poor people who already existed in Sweden found it even more difficult to get a job.
The new government is now to set a salary floor for labor immigration which is said to be at the same level as the Swedish median wage, currently around 3,055 euros (35,000 kronor) a month, which means that low-wage jobs will disappear from labor immigration. And it is thanks to this that the more liberal forces in the government, can now triumphantly proclaim that Sweden will continue to be a country of immigration, but with the right immigration.
There are however several problems with highly skilled immigration that all true conservatives should consider when trying to take a balanced stance on the issue.
First, it’s obvious that the very idea of skilled labor immigration risks further undermining the importance in the West of nations and nationalism. A nation is not just a formal state formation. It is usually also a people, a culture, a history, an identity. Most countries include traditional minorities – like the Sami in Sweden – but we nevertheless tend to connect for example French culture to the French people, Italian culture to Italians. A true conservative loves national and cultural diversity. He or she appreciates that Europe consists of separate countries and cultures.
And it is not a question of stopping all migration to Europe. That is impossible and it is not desirable. But the labor immigration that we now have to Europe will, due to its scale, in the long run weaken our national cultures and our national peculiarities. And here, values such as openness and competition cannot stand above all other values. Social justice is mentioned, for example, in the Reykjavik declaration, and it may well become more difficult to maintain such justice if we have far too much mobility.
Another important aspect is that we take major security policy risks. Well-educated and highly skilled Chinese and Indians who come to Europe may remain politically loyal to their home countries. Both China and India today count as Brics nations which try to resist the Western hegemony over thinking and political world dominance. This applies above all to China, of course, but also to India. India will probably seek a more important international role and may start challenging European countries on their home soil as China is already doing. Having millions of well-educated and knowledgeable Chinese and Indians in advanced positions in our societies is potentially life-threatening. And we hav to take that into account.
The alternative to bringing in large amounts of well-educated labor is, of course, that we try to strengthen our own skills. Swedish highly qualified research must be carried out by Swedes as far as possible. Swedes must stand for Swedish competence. Europeans must stand for European competence. To import foreign competence is to work against the development of our own competence and in the long run this is pure madness.
We need much more balance and wisdom here. And, in Sweden and in Europe in general, we need to talk more about the disadvantages of bringing in too much highly skilled work force. We can build prosperity with the help of openness and competition without free labor invasion. Such a policy risks undermining other values that we Europeans hold dear and which must also be respected. We need to regulate everything in life. Even labor migration.