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It is a simple fact that Sweden has an extreme immigration policy, to be described in more detail below. Add to this that most Swedes, including the author, are very proud of Sweden being a rich welfare state with gender equality, clean environment etc. Unfortunately the combination of these two circumstances has a not-so-nice psychological side effect in the Swedish political and media elite, writes Swedish entrepreneur Dag Kirsebom.
That is a superior attitude whereby other countries must be lectured to understand that the way Sweden does things is the correct and only way to do things. This has already happened to EU countries in general and to our Nordic neighbours Denmark, Norway and Finland in specific. So Estonia – welcome to the club. From here on it will only get worse.
Fredrik Reinfeldt, Swedens ex prime minister from Moderaterna [the Moderates], dubbed Sweden «A Great Humanitarian Power» [«Humanitär Stormakt»], leading up to the last parliamentary election in September 2014. Reading the article «Former Swedish politician: it’s all about being a global citizen!» in Postimees in English May 6th 2015, featuring the same claim, I got the feeling of the author Mr Anders Hedman, also from Moderaterna, wanting to be a history professor teaching Postimees’ readers objective facts, he wants to correct the «one-sided» article written by Ms Marit Hermann [Reader: why I don’t welcome the refugees, in light of Swedish multikulti] and «explain» how things really are. There are only two things wrong with this metaphor; the article is neither objective nor based on facts. The author seems to have appointed himself a spokesperson for Sweden and all Swedes, but I would say he is confusing his personal opinion with the opinion of the majority of Swedes. Furthermore, politics cannot only be piling up beautiful words on top of each other, it must also have some connection to the real world.
Almost on a daily basis representatives from the Swedish political and media elite complain about other EU countries «not taking their responsibility» since they don’t give asylum to as many refugees as Sweden does. After the recent parliamentary election in Finland, the incoming Prime Minister Juha Sipilä held a press conference that also representatives from the Swedish media attended. The Swedish media elite have the attitude that they know best not only regarding how Sweden should be governed, but also how other countries should be governed. Swedish TV4 started to lecture Juha Sipilä informing him how terrible it would be if he includes a party negative to immigration in his new government. Unfortunately for Swedish TV4 Juha Sipilä bluntly dismissed the lecture with «This is Finland».
Henrik Arnstad is a historian that the Swedish government uses as reference for its political ideological analysis. Henrik Arnstad has accused one of the two parties in the present Norwegian government, which wants to lower immigration to Norway, for being «neo-fascists». But most criticism, sometimes even outright hate, is directed towards Denmark. I could come up with hundreds of examples from the last decade of the Swedish political and media elite attacking Denmark for not having a «humanitarian» immigration policy similar to Sweden.
According to a survey, made by Gothenburg University (SOM) in 2012, 18% of Swedes wanted Sweden to increase the number of refugees given asylum to Sweden, 32% were neutral and 50% wanted Sweden to give asylum to fewer refugees (http://www.tino.us/2013/12/vad-som-undersokningen-egentligen-visar-om-invandringsopinion/). Since 2012 the number of refugees seeking asylum in Sweden has almost doubled. In other words, it is only a small percentage of the Swedish population who agree with the immigration policy of the Swedish government. Stefan Löfven, the Swedish prime minister, in December 2014 used the word «neo-fascists» to describe the Swedes who don’t agree that Sweden should give asylum to even more refugees in the upcoming years. And note that Prime Minister Löfven talked about the number of refugees compared to the year 2014, and not compared to 2012 when the survey mentioned above was made and when there were considerably less refugees seeking asylum in Sweden.
Not only is it very important to be politically correct in Sweden, as is pointed out in the previous article. To be politically correct is also a moving target requiring you to keep up to date with the latest desirable opinions at all times. Proposing that Sweden gives asylum to 45,000 refugees might be acceptable in 2012, but if you propose the same number in 2014 you are suddenly a neo-fascist because by then the politically correct number is 80,000 (http://www.migrationsverket.se/Om-Migrationsverket/Statistik.html). The vocabulary and mentality is very similar to how Soviet Union, or today’s Russia for that matter, described and treated its political opponents. In the previous article the rhetoric is somewhat toned down, but the meaning is the same. Again and again Postimees’ readers are made to understand that anyone who wants fewer refugees seeking asylum in Sweden doesn’t accept «that all humans beings have equal value». The author knows very well that in the Swedish public debate accusing someone of not accepting «that all humans beings have equal value» is just another way of saying that you are a neo-fascist.
As was noted in the previous article in 2011 the Moderaterna government signed an agreement with the Green Party liberalising the Swedish asylum policy further. However, this is a very important agreement that demands some further clarification. Both the Green Party and the youth organisation of Moderaterna, MUF, want Sweden to introduce totally free immigration, anyone in the world who wants to live in Sweden should be allowed to do so. The stated long term goal of the Green Party and MUF is a global world without borders and nations, where everyone are global citizens. At present no country in the world has free immigration. Not even countries where people use Skype... Hardly surprising then that the agreement with the Green Party in 2011 has lead to a massive increase in immigration to Sweden during the last four years. Both in the parliamentary election in 2010 and in the one in 2014 the Green Party received 7% of the votes. This small party has been, and still is, deciding the Swedish immigration policy. The main reason the small Green Party can have such an immense influence is the massive support it has from the media elite. 52% of the journalists at Sveriges Television are voting for the Green Party (http://politikfakta.se/2013/03/svts-partisympatier-ett-demokratiskt-problem/).
I struggled to understand the relevance of the historical expose of immigration to Sweden. Because all these groups mentioned started to work when they arrived in Sweden. In general they didn’t live on social welfare payments from the state, or if a few of them did it was only temporary. The difference to the Swedish society today couldn’t be bigger. Sweden today is a highly developed country with few simple works available. No matter how much fast food we eat there are only so many jobs that McDonald’s can create. So even if most newly arrived immigrants in Sweden want to work and contribute to the society they can’t, there are no jobs for them.
Furthermore when so many immigrants arrive during just a few years it is no surprise that there is an enormous lack of housing, a problem just getting worse by the day. At the moment the Swedish state is renting one room apartments for the immigrants paying up to €7,400 per month. Remember the real estate boom in Estonia ten years ago? The situation in Estonia then is not even close to the situation in Sweden today. Demand surpasses supply at an unsustainable level. There are some shady businessmen getting very rich by Swedish taxpayers money at the moment.
The previous article is full of politically correct slogans for the extreme Swedish immigration policy. I only found one economical argument based on statistics, which is: « ”Sweden has enjoyed a stronger economical growth than Finland over the last years, although we receive many more immigrants than Finland.» However, this is a misunderstanding, Sweden has not enjoyed stronger economical growth than Finland «although» we have received many more immigrants than Finland, but rather because of it. In general a bigger population means a bigger total economy, and this is true even if most newly arrived immigrants don’t get a job. If a country runs a budget deficit, as Sweden has been doing during last years, it can increase GDP in the short term by supporting the immigration industry.
The relevant figures are of course GDP per capita (per person) and productivity, not total GDP. According to statistics from the World Bank, Sweden had a somewhat stronger growth in GDP per capita than Finland for the time period 2010 – 2013 (no figures available yet for 2014) and a somewhat weaker growth in GDP per capita than Finland for the time period 2005 – 2009 (http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.KD.ZG). As anyone can understand, immigration is just one factor affecting GDP per capita growth. During the last decade Finland has had specific problems related to Nokia and the forest industry. From the World Bank statistics we can also see that Estonia has had a much stronger growth in GDP per capita than Sweden. Since I don’t use statistics to lie I will not claim that Estonia’s strong growth is due to low immigration. On the contrary my personal belief is that the growth figures would have been even stronger had Estonia had immigration of skilled labour from western Ukraine, for example. Also, stronger bonds with Ukraine would be good from a geopolitical perspective. But again, this is my personal belief and nothing I want to shove down the throats of Estonians. Estonians, not Swedish bullies and besserwissers, should decide about the Estonian immigration policy.
Fredrik Schulte is another politician from Moderaterna, sitting in the Swedish parliament Riksdagen, who also tried the manipulation of only calculating total GDP, and not GDP per capita and productivity. Tino Sanandaji, a respected Swedish-Kurdish economist, with MA in economics from Stockholm School of Economics and Ph.D. in Public Policy from University of Chicago, has on his website www.tino.us explained in detail how flawed these calculations are. Mr Sanandaji has no kind words for the calculations: «The image of reality that Moderaterna uses to defend their immigration policy is nothing more than free fantasy.»
In addition to the many legal refugees fleeing to EU there are also many illegal immigrants. The problem of «look-alike-passports» has grown dramatically. It means an EU-citizen «loses» his/her passport, but the passport is actually sold to someone looking similar who can then illegally enter the EU with a valid EU passport. In Sweden, there are no strong actions taken to counter this phenomenon. To get a new passport after you lose your old passport cost €40. The old passport can be sold on the black market for €500 – €9,000. There are individuals in Sweden who have «lost» their passport 20 times during a few years. When Frontex, EU’s common border control agency, investigated the problem they found 1,300 confirmed cases of «look-alike-passports» frauds. Of these, 440 were done with Swedish passports, equal to one third of the total. Sweden has 2% of EU’s total population. Maybe it is Sweden, and not all other EU countries, that needs to «take responsibility» for its policies.
In 2015 it is estimated that 80,000 – 105,000 refugees will seek asylum in Sweden (http://www.migrationsverket.se/Om-Migrationsverket/Nyhetsarkiv/Nyhetsarkiv-2015/2015-02-03-Fortsatt-manga-asylsokande-under-2015---behovet-av-boendeplatser-okar.html). And for each refugee given asylum, afterwards 1-2 relatives on average also move to Sweden. Moderaterna and the Green Party have agreed in principle that if a refugee given asylum in Sweden wants his or her relatives also to move to Sweden, he or she has the economical responsibility to support the relatives. However, Moderaterna and the Green Party decided that there should be some exceptions to this rule. These exceptions are valid for 99,3% of the relatives! So for 99,3% of relatives moving to Sweden – the Swedish state has the responsibility to support them financially.
To summarize: the Swedish immigration policy that the author of the previous article is so proud of and thinks all other countries must copy, «the only decent path from a moral perspective» as the author so elegantly puts it, will within a few years reach a total systemic collapse. Sweden may soon very well have economic crisis similar to what Estonia had in 2008 – 2010. In the article it is repeated several times that Sweden has some «challenges» with immigration. Well I guess you could say that the captain on Titanic also had some «challenges» right after he hit an iceberg.
Dag Kirsebom
Swedish entrepreneur and business angel, author of book «Hard Landing, The fairy tale of the rise and fall of the Estonian economy» (2008)