Sweden

Sweden, the biggest country in Scandinavia with a population of just over nine million people, is today a multicultural society. In recent years the influx of asylum-seekers and refugees, family members of migrants already resident in the country, as well as foreign students has reached record levels. In addition, European Union (EU) citizens, Norwegians and Icelanders are free to settle in Sweden and look for work. Only recently the government also made immigration easier for workers from non-EU states. In 2007 there were more than 1.2 million people living in Sweden who were born in another country – 13.7 per cent of the total population.

Alongside its comparatively open immigration policy, the country has an integration policy that, despite some defects, changing political priorities and some unresolved challenges, is deemed a success and even exemplary by the international community; this is underscored by the presence of immigrants in public life, symbolising the openness of the multicultural society. One example is the presence of high-level politicians with a migration background. In the present centre-right government led by Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt, for example, Burundi-born Minister Nyamko Sabuni is responsible for integration. The previous social democratic government, too, included a cabinet minister from an immigrant family, the Minister for Schools, Ibrahim Baylan.

By comparison with the rest of Europe, Sweden takes in many refugees and actively encourages new labour migrants, and was also the only EU country to immediately open its doors to citizens from the EU accession countries of 2004 and 2007. These facts are accepted and endorsed or at least tolerated by the majority of the population.