Sweden Democrats’ ‘era of deportations’ leaves lasting mark across Europe as Stockholm forms new government
by https://euobserver.com/author/gaia-neiman/ · EUobserverWhile Sweden has one of the highest rates of enforced deportations in the EU, it ended up deporting more Britons after Brexit than any other member state (Source: News Oresund)
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By Gaia Neiman,
Stockholm
,
“The era of deportations has begun,” declared the Swedish Democrats’ MEP Charlie Weimers earlier this year, in the aftermath of the EU return regulations vote, which overwhelmingly supported the externalisation of Europe’s asylum system to third countries.
That vote, passed in the European Parliament in June, formalised the enthusiasm for migration deterrence that had become prominent across much of Europe – with Sweden’s government leading the charge since their election to power in 2022.
According to data from Eurostat, Sweden is among the leaders in effective returns of third-country nationals, with a 76 percent rate of enforcing ordered deportation in 2018-2025, compared to the EU average of 32 percent.
Although smaller countries on Europe’s edges have stronger enforcement rates due to reduced asylum arrivals, such as Slovakia’s 85 percent, Sweden’s rate of effective returns fares strongly alongside other key reception countries.
Germany’s return enforcement rate is 65 percent, for example, while Denmark and Italy both returned 22 percent, and the Netherlands enforced 16 percent of its deportation orders.
After four years of supporting the government in Stockholm, the Sweden Democrats (SD) leave a significant mark on Sweden’s migration policy, including measures that have contributed to a broader debate around deportations across the EU, and which may live on with the new government following the general election on Sunday (13 September).
Despite having been one of the most welcoming countries in the immediate aftermath of the EU’s migration crisis in 2015, Ulf Kristersson’s three-party coalition government turned the tide of their deportation policy “to produce and maintain a racial social order and fuel the current authoritarian transformations of the Swedish state,” University of Gothenburg global studies professor Annika Lindberg wrote in the journal of Citizenship Studies last April.
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While Sweden has one of the highest rates of enforced deportations in the EU, it ended up deporting more Britons after Brexit than any other member state (Source: News Oresund)
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Gaia Neiman is a migration and politics reporter at EUobserver. She has previously written for Reuters, The Guardian, The Telegraph, among others.
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