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INSIDE SWEDEN

Inside Sweden: Migration, Easter and we’re launching a new newsletter

In the latest edition of our Inside Sweden newsletter for members of The Local, editor Emma Löfgren writes about what we've been up to this week.

Published: 8 April 2023 10:17 CEST

Hej,

Emma here today, hope your Easter weekend is just the way you want it!

Today on The Local’s Sweden in Focus podcast, we talk about Easter traditions, the biggest stories of the week and Swedish attitudes to drugs. Spotify now has a new feature which allows you to comment on episodes, so if that’s where you listen to us, feel free to drop us a comment and let us know what you think.

This week we’ve been planning the launch of a new newsletter for Indians in Sweden. We ran a survey in our daily newsletter and in the Indians in Sweden Facebook group to ask for people’s thoughts on what should be included in the newsletter, but readers are also always welcome to email us directly if you have feedback to share. You can sign up to receive the newsletter here.

We’ve also been writing this week about Brits in Sweden, specifically Brits affected by deportation orders. Sweden really sticks out in the EU statistics and we’re trying to find out what – if anything – is being done about it.

Kathleen Poole, a 74-year-old British grandmother with Alzheimer’s, will be able to stay in Sweden for the time being. The Migration Agency has put her deportation on hold pending a doctor’s assessment of her health.

This doesn’t mean her deportation order has been repealed, and it doesn’t extend to other Brits facing a similar fate. But it’s good news for Poole and her family, although their fight to help her stay for good continues.

In other migration-related news, the Migration Agency this week asked the government to pause a “fast-track” scheme which allows people who have been waiting for a certain number of months for their permit or citizenship application to be processed to request an immediate decision on their case.

According to the Migration Agency, the increasing number of people who file such requests is adding to the burden of their staff and slows down the processing of other cases – although it might of course not be entirely out of line to wonder if they’ve got their chickens and eggs in the wrong order. Surely making sure that cases are actually processed on time should be the priority?

Property prices in Sweden are on the rise despite interest rate hikes, surprising even the experts. If you, like me, have to renegotiate your mortgage soon, here’s our always-handy guide to how to get the best rate. Or perhaps, with the market being what it is, that should say how to get the least-worst rate.

Thanks for reading and Glad Påsk! I leave you with this picture of me as a Swedish Easter Witch at a university party many, many years ago (that’s just juice in those bottles, Mum):

Inside Sweden is our weekly newsletter for members that gives you news, analysis and, sometimes, takes you behind the scenes at The Local. It’s published each Saturday and members can receive it directly to your inbox, by going to your newsletter preferences.

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For members

INSIDE SWEDEN

Inside Sweden: Motti, molusk, migration and ministers

The Local's editor Emma Löfgren rounds up the biggest stories of the week in our Inside Sweden newsletter.

Published: 14 September 2024 10:53 CEST
Inside Sweden: Motti, molusk, migration and ministers

Hej,

It was peculiar but more moving than I expected to see international football icons such as David Beckham and Roy Hodgson fly in to attend Sven-Göran Eriksson’s funeral in the small, rural town of Torsby, where the late Swedish football coach grew up.

While Eriksson’s record was hardly pristine – major football accolades mixed with scandals and affairs – he was much-loved in his hometown in the Värmland region.

He returned that love. Eriksson – or let’s just call him Svennis, as he’s known in Sweden – never lost his Värmland accent. In between moving around the world to coach teams such as Lazio, England, Mexico, Fiorentina, Manchester City and so on, he always returned back to Värmland, back to Torsby and the nearby town of Sunne.

You could see the traces of this in his final departure as well – several aspects of his funeral were apparently orchestrated by Svennis himself, from the decision to open the ceremony to the public and show it on a big screen outside the church, to the food served at the service for invited guests such as Beckham: motti and molusk.

Motti is a type of porridge brought by Finns to Värmland in the 1600s, served with bacon and lingonberries. Molusk is, thankfully, much less scary than it sounds: it’s a chocolate cake, also from Värmland and served by the local bakery in Torsby.

The funeral was even broadcast and live-blogged by Aftonbladet, Sweden’s biggest newssite, which gives you an idea of Svennis’s popularity in his home country.

In other news

Shorter days make it much harder to get enough vitamin D during the colder months of the year in Sweden. Is it worth taking supplements during the winter?

There’s a lot of budget news at the moment, including plans to double the civil defence budget and allocating over 4.4 billion kronor to restricting migration, including giving 350,000 kronor to refugees who choose to return home voluntarily.

The government had a major reshuffle this week, moving some of the top roles around. I explain what’s happening on the latest episode of our Sweden in Focus podcast.

We’ve also written a few guides to the reshuffle, including:

What you need to know about Sweden’s new foreign minister.

What you need to know about Sweden’s new migration minister.

What are the Swedish government’s key priorities for the year ahead?

Sweden’s new migration minister said in one of his first comments that integration is key to creating a better life for everyone in the country, which made me think of this article we wrote a while back based on The Local’s readers’ suggestions.

What steps do you need to follow to become a Swedish citizen? In this week’s episode of Sweden in Focus Extra – for Membership+ subscribers – my colleagues discussed what documentation you need to provide when applying for Swedish citizenship.

Becky wrote about a village in northern Sweden that’s paying people 10,000 kronor to move there. That’s not even enough money to cover the move, but maybe if you’re thinking of moving anyway, it’s enough to make you consider Glommersträsk.

Have a good weekend,

Emma

Inside Sweden is our weekly newsletter for members which gives you news, analysis and, sometimes, takes you behind the scenes at The Local. It’s published each Saturday and with Membership+ you can also receive it directly to your inbox.

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