Parliament's Speaker to hold press conference on future government
The Speaker of Sweden's parliament, Andreas Norlén, will hold a press conference at 11am on Friday where he is expected to announce his decision over which party leader to appoint as sonderingsperson, the person responsible for negotiating a government coalition that will allow them to be tolerated by parliament as prime minister
Norlén could appoint Moderate Party leader as sonderingsperson, put the candidacy of Social Democrat leader Magdalena Andersson to a parliamentary vote (as Sweden Democrat leader Jimmie Åkesson has demanded), or say he requires more time to consider the issue.
Swedish vocabulary: betänketid – time to consider an issue
Police ignored key evidence in investigation of Örebro school shooting: book
A new book by the journalist Mattias Beijmo argues that police investigating the Örebro school shooting ignored key evidence that could have shown that the attacker Rickard Andersson had racist or ideological motives.
Police, he argued, never investigated the accounts Andersson had on Telegram or Rumble, never examined his relatives' mobile phones, or tried to access a virtual computer behind strong encryption that police forensics found traces of earlier in the investigation.
He also says he is surprised police never mentioned that one of Andersson's last actions before the attack was to bookmark and highlight a right-wing extremist newspaper he was reading.
Top Migration Court 'considering suitable case' on strict citizenship law
The Migration Court of Appeal in Stockholm – Sweden's highest migration court – has told The Local that it is 'considering whether there is a suitable case" involving the new stricter citizenship law to grant leave to appeal, so that it can test the new law at the highest level.
In a statement to The Local, Peder Liljeqvist, the judge who heads the Migration Court of Appeal's precedent department, said his court was "aware that the issue affects a large number of people and understands that it arouses media interest".
"There are many cases that are now passing through the migration courts and the Migration Court of Appeal is monitoring the situation and considering whether a suitable case should be granted leave to appeal. Beyond this, there is currently nothing more for the court to say."
The court has already refused to grant several citizenship applicants rejected by the Migration Court in Gothenburg leave to appeal.
Swedish vocabulary: ett lämpligt mål – a suitable case
Swedish Migration Agency resumes processing of paused teen residency cases
The Swedish Migration Agency has resumed processing of residency permit applications for 18- to 20-year-olds paused in March after the government pledged to bring in a solution to so-called 'teen deportations'.
The processing of the cases has been resumed because of the new family reunion law which came into force on October 1st, which includes measures to reduce the problem of teen deportations – young adults who face deportation after they turn 18 or because their parent receives permanent residency because they are no longer counted as a dependent of a parent.
Under the new law, young adults who previously had residency as a dependant will be able to apply for a work permit, study permit, or other type of residency permit from within Sweden.
The maximum age at which a young adult can qualify as a dependent has also been increased under the law from 18 to 21. The law also includes transitional arrangements allowing young adults who have already received a deportation decision to apply once again to extend a residency permit as a dependent.
Swedish vocabulary: att återuppta – to resume, take up again
Swedish agency calls for citizenship language tests to be postponed until 2029
The Swedish Council of Higher Education (UHR) has proposed delaying the introduction of language tests for citizenship by two more years, with the reading and listening test taking place in autumn of 2029 and the speaking and writing test in 2030.
In its final assessment, the council – which is responsible for arranging the tests – said that it would be impossible to carry out the tests by October 1st, 2027, the deadline the government agreed in February.
"UHR's overall assessment is that the conditions are not in place to implement stage two, which covers tests in reading and listening, by October 1st, 2027," it wrote in a press release announcing its conclusions. "This conclusion is based on the fact that Stockholm University still does not see any possibility to produce a fully developed, quality-assured test by that time."
The conclusions will come as a blow to Sweden's government, which initially called for the first tests to be held by August 17th 2026, but had to push back the deadline to October 2027, after Stockholm University, which is responsible for developing the language tests, said that developing them would take at least two years.
Swedish vocabulary: en samlad bedömning – an overall assessment