Press Releases
Official press releases from Fair Transition Sweden.
2026-03-19
Minister Forssell’s security excuse doesn’t justify changing the rules on pending applicants.
Fair Transition appreciates that Migrationsminister Johan Forssell has increasingly engaged with the media to explain his reasoning for not including övergångsbestämmelser in the new citizenship law. Unfortunately, this decision defies all reasoning. After offering a series of weak arguments and demonstrating a complete inability to refute any of the arguments for transitional rules raised in last week’s interview with Sweden Radio, Johan Forssell decided to double down on just one argument during a press conference today: national security. Specifically, Johan Forssell claims that the new rules for citizenship — particularly the increased residency requirement from five to eight years — will enable Säpo to better detect individuals who present a threat to Sweden’s national security and ensure that they are not granted citizenship.
While no one can deny that Sweden’s national security is an immensely important issue, refusing to implement the new citizenship law without transitional rules has nothing to do with it. There are many flaws with the minister’s argument:
If Säpo needs more time to detect and manage security threats, this indicates an issue with lack of funding and capacity within Säpo, not a flawed citizenship policy. Migrationsverket and Säpo have always collaborated closely to monitor and quickly act on cases where security threats are suspected or directly reported to either agency. Robust routines already exist to manage cases where security threats are suspected. Moreover, the Migration Agency has carried out much more robust security checks since April 2025.
The average waiting time for citizenship is currently 53 months. This is over four years’ waiting time for a decision. Assuming that an applicant applies for citizenship exactly five years after moving to Sweden with legal residency, this would make on average for over nine years of residency time — significantly more time than even the government’s newly proposed requirement of eight years. This alone should satisfy Säpo’s needs, even under the current rules.
It will soon be possible to revoke citizenship for individuals that present a threat to national security. Today, the government presented its inquiry into a proposal to revoke citizenship for a range of crimes, among them actions that constitute a threat to Sweden’s national security or terrorism. While this proposal requires a constitutional amendment, all signs point towards this law passing, ensuring that even in the very unlikely chance that someone who presents a threat to national security receives citizenship, their citizenship can be revoked.
We highlight again that Sweden will become the only country in Europe to ever introduce tightened requirements for citizenship without transitional rules. Sweden’s national security situation does not exist in a vacuum. Many other European countries are dealing with a series of both traditional and hybrid national security threats, and many of those threats in other countries are arguably much larger than those that Sweden faces. If countries like Germany, France, Norway, and Finland can introduce new requirements with robust transitional rules, so can Sweden.
When closely examined, the justification of national security for not implementing the new citizenship law with transitional rules becomes more of a weak excuse for not wanting to follow expert recommendations and adhere to longstanding principles of rättssäkerhet. We call on the government and the Riksdag once again to stand up for rättssäkerhet, for fairness, and for Sweden and its future citizens. Amend the law to include transitional rules.
2026-03-06
Fair Transition Sweden Welcomes Migration Adjustments, Urges Parliament to Include Transitional Provisions in Citizenship Reform
We welcome the government’s decision to pause teen deportations, allow workers affected by the abolition of the track change law to reapply from within Sweden, and adjust work permit rules sends a clear signal: when reforms produce unfair outcomes, adjustments are warranted.
One critical issue remains unaddressed:
The government plans to apply new, stricter citizenship requirements to the roughly 100,000 applications already pending at the Swedish Migration Agency, including applications submitted years ago under the previous rules. Both the government’s own inquiry and the Council on Legislation (Lagrådet) have explicitly warned against this, citing risks to legal certainty and predictability.
The fix is simple: applications submitted before the new law enters into force on June 6 should be assessed under the rules that applied when they were filed.
“Today’s announcement confirms that the government will act when policy creates unreasonable outcomes,” said Patrick Henry Gallen, spokesperson for Fair Transition Sweden. “That same willingness is needed here. 100,000 people applied in good faith. Parliament can protect them simply by including transitional provisions in the final law.”
Fair Transition Sweden calls on members of the Socialförsäkringsutskottet and all Riksdag members to ensure transitional provisions are included in the final legislation.