Why did you switch from the Christian Democrats to your current party?
The Sweden Democrats campaigned to halt asylum migration. The established center-right did not put the security, safety, and future of the Swedish people ahead of the principle of free movement and the right to asylum trumping everything else.
My wife joined the Sweden Democrats a little before me and then asked me, “Charlie, in 30 years when you meet your grandchildren, will you be able to look them in the eyes and tell them you did everything you could to save Sweden?” And I knew if I remained with the Christian Democrats, the answer to that question would be “No.”
Do your criticisms of the center-right mainstream apply to most of the European People’s Party?
I think there are some EPP parties in the group that finally understand that the migration issue is existential, but as a whole, the EPP is still not there. They must embrace the idea of ending asylum migration to Europe in order to live up to their responsibility.
Is Swedish migration clearly connected to the recent rise in violent crime?
Many sources support the claim linking mass migration and rising crime. I think the best evidence is the shift in the Swedish Social Democrats’ policy. They now say a strict migration policy is needed —this has never been stated before—and also admit that mass migration contributes to crime. Don’t take it from me, listen to the Social Democrats who just a few years ago denied any such connection. They campaigned for a Europe without walls. Now they are looking into the abyss and realize that to line up with reality, they need to change their policies. Unlike in Brussels, they have started in Stockholm.
I would not be honest if I said this can be 100% resolved. But finally, we have a government in Sweden that is starting to deal with the problem by increasing sentences for gang-related crime, deporting foreign nationals who are engaged in crime, and a whole range of different measures. But to give ourselves an honest chance of actually rooting out criminal gangs, we need to stop asylum migration completely. No asylum migration to Sweden, giving us the breathing space to deal with the problem.
What should voters know about the von der Leyen Commission’s reform package—the Migration Pact—which is near completion?
Voters should know that the center-left and the center-right will present this as a panacea, which is not true. While it does actually contain some good parts—strengthening the screening procedures, for instance—it also includes a newly established principle that EU member states must pay their way out of centrally imposed asylum migration. This is why the Sweden Democrats could not endorse the full Migration Pact, but only the restrictive parts.
This Pact won’t solve anything because it covers only 30,000 migrants. That is the number to be redistributed annually. And we know that Italy alone registered over 160,000 last year. So what will happen when no country accepts asylum migrants imposed by the EU? Well, those 30,000 plus several more hundreds of thousands of migrants will be stranded on European territory in the frontier states. This will be an unsustainable situation. And the center-left will demand that we give these migrants a sort of amnesty: the writing is on the wall.
The next responsible center-right majority needs to create a realistic ‘Migration Pact 2.0,’ if you will. It should take the full asylum process, including refugee screening, outside of EU territory—the only way to stop the deadly boats on the Mediterranean and prevent the frontier states from being a migration dump for the rest of Europe.
The focus of this new pact should be externalizing the EU’s migration policy, but any such a mechanism should be purely voluntary. Countries who are willing to pay to rehome asylum seekers in a third country—be it Albania, Rwanda, or wherever else we can strike deals—are free to do so. But those countries focusing on their domestic problems—such as Sweden—should be free to do just that.
To go with strong external border controls, the European Conservatives and Reformists seek an Australian model. What is that?
The Australian model means not accepting illegal migration. In short, turn back the boats and prohibit anyone who attempts illegal entry from returning. If those individuals show up on our shores and request international protection, the answer should be no. When you entered EU territory illegally, you forfeited your right to apply for EU asylum. That will stop the boats, as it did in Australia, and it will resolve the issue of illegal migration.
I think the first sign that Europe is actually willing to deal with illegal migration will be when Brussels stops using Orwellian language—when they stop talking about ‘irregular’ migration and actually call it by its name: illegal migration. When European voters hear that, they can start trusting the politicians in charge, but until then, they only get one option, and that is to vote for patriotic conservative parties.
How about legal migration? Only one-tenth of the non-European migrants arrive illegally.
It was not illegal migration that caused the multicultural meltdown of Sweden, but legal asylum migration. The question Europeans need to ask themselves is, can we keep enforcing these outdated international conventions that established the universal right to asylum? Can we do that when 780 million people are eligible for asylum in the world, according to a report commissioned by the UK?
The answer must be “no.” We cannot do that. We cannot be the sole continent in the world—together with Democrat-run America—taking responsibility for the global asylum problem. It’s just not sustainable.
Another part of legal migration is obviously labor migration. Sweden used to have Europe’s most liberal regime in terms of labor migration, and it didn’t work out. It worked so badly that even those parties who introduced that legislation—the Liberals, the Moderates, and the Christian Democrats—endorsed our criticism of this system, where low-income labor was basically imported and, in many cases, abused. By abuse, I mean working under slave-like conditions with fake contracts that used to enable illegal migration. A liberal labor migration policy opens the door for a growing shadow society underpinned by organized crime.
Let’s also admit that other countries are not always sending us their best. Mass labor migration also causes low-income competition for our own workers. EU countries who are thinking about large-scale labor migration should look at Sweden. Not for inspiration, but to learn the lesson. They should also ask themselves how many can we take without the native culture and security on the streets being affected.
Do you think the two conservative parties in the EU elections, ECR and ID, will have a mandate to influence EU decision-making, including its migration policy?
I think the EPP is very well aware that many of the green policies that they voted through at the beginning of the mandate are deeply unpopular among center-right voters, and if they don’t revert, they will be punished at the polls. The language from people like German CDU heavyweight Peter Liese of the EPP group—about torturing the farmers of Europe, warning of a Havana-style car park in the event of a ban on newly produced combustion engines from 2035—shows a growing awareness of the need to deal with the draconian green policies that were voted through during this mandate. On energy, I think we see eye-to-eye on the need to push for nuclear energy as one of the key components in our transition away from fossil fuels.
On migration, the EPP’s recent congress in Bucharest also endorsed the idea of reception centers and asylum processing in third countries, which is positive. They need to take a few more steps to be as proactive as we are on this, but at least the trajectory is right. I think we could negotiate on improvements to migration policy in the next mandate. I see that we agree on the need to strike deals with third countries to prevent illegal migration as soon as possible.
When the EPP really tries to highlight the stricter parts of the Migration Pact, it’s a sign that they realize where the voters are and there is pressure from ordinary people on this. So I have high hopes.
Whether we get a Commission that will take another step towards a responsible migration policy is yet to be seen. At least we could demand this in the European Parliament if we gain a majority at the polls on June 9th.
