Sweden: financial aids only to countries that take back expulsed immigrants

Sweden’s granting of official development aid will soon depend on the recipient country’s acceptance of the repatriation of its nationals, such as asylum seekers and migrants considered a security risk to Sweden, according to a statement by the center-right government on Thursday (Dec. 14).

“Sweden’s development aid policy is undergoing a historic change,” said Aron Emilsson of the Sweden Democrats (ECR Group), adding that aid will now be targeted at reducing the root causes of irregular migration and forced displacement. Recall that Sweden has recently had a law and order problem related to non-integrated migration that has caused the number of crimes to explode.

“Aid will be more conditional on recipient countries taking back their citizens,” he said at a press conference about the government’s proposal.

Now a center-right coalition of moderates (EPP), Christian Democrats (EPP), and liberals (Renew) leads politics in Sweden. However, they are counting on the support of the Sweden Democrats (ECR), the same European group as FdI, which is in government in Italy, to form their coalition.

“It makes no sense to give official development aid to states that work against Swedish interests,” Emilsson said, adding that the previous government had failed to condition aid.

Sweden’s Minister for International Development Cooperation and Foreign Trade, Johan Forssell of the Moderate Party, said he was ready to suspend aid to countries that did not cooperate with Sweden in fighting corruption or democratization.

“If we find that countries are not interested, we should ask ourselves, do we really need to be in this country? Or can we use our resources elsewhere, where there is a greater willingness to reform?” he asked, adding that this is also part of the change Stockholm wants.

The minister also announced that bilateral aid will be limited to 30 countries. In this way, they will be concentrated, and therefore more effective, and will presumably be directed toward those countries where the most problematic targeting flows for Sweden come from, so that Sweden will have more leverage.

We will see if this policy will work.