Ulf Kristersson’s center-right government, which relies heavily on the support of the national-conservative Sweden Democrats (SD), has announced a landmark reform to its foreign aid policy that will require beneficiary countries to cooperate with its repatriation efforts to continue receiving financial assistance.
The announcement comes after leaders in the SD-supported government, in an op-ed penned for Dagens Nyheter earlier, revealed that the country has witnessed 26% fewer asylum applications in 2023 than the previous year due to policies it enacted aimed at eliminating migration pull factors.
Speaking at a press conference alongside members of the governing coalition, Sweden Democrats MP Aron Emilsson, who chairs the foreign affairs committee, said: “We are now launching a historic overhaul of the aid policy, where the focus on Swedish interests and humanitarian support will be a significantly larger part of aid work.”
Aid, Emilsson explained, can be a crucial tool in foreign policy, helping to overcome barriers to deportation enforcement and the fight against human trafficking. Therefore, foreign aid will be made “more conditional on recipient countries taking back their own citizens,” he declared.
It simply “does not make sense to provide aid to states that work against Swedish interests,” Emilsson declared, highlighting that the previous left-liberal government had failed to uphold national interests by making foreign aid more conditional.
Minister for Development and Foreign Trade Johan Forssell, a member of Kristersson’s Moderate Party, also expressed his willingness to discontinue financial aid to governments that refuse to collaborate with Sweden in combating corruption and promoting democratic development.
“If we find that countries are not interested, we should ask ourselves: should we really be in that country? Or can we use our resources elsewhere where there is a greater willingness to reform?” he asked rhetorically, adding that Sweden’s bilateral aid commitments would be extended to no more than 30 countries.
He concluded by underscoring that the reforms are necessary to ensure that “Swedish taxpayers’ money always achieves the best possible results.”
Since assuming the reins of power a little over a year ago, the SD-supported government has been laboring diligently to decelerate the long-term and progressively worsening societal damage brought about by the lax, head-in-the-clouds migration policies implemented and administered by the Social Democrats over several decades.
Effectuating policies that scale back migration flows into the country and streamline the ability to remove those who, for whatever reason, have lost the right to stay in the country have been central in the government’s efforts to clean up the ruin caused by left-liberal rule.
