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Opinion · DailySweden view · Published 8 August 2026

Sweden cannot demand integration while making belonging conditional

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DailySweden
Updated 10:57 · 4 min read

Syrian refugees with luggage gathered outside Stockholm Central station after arriving in Sweden in September 2015.
Syrian refugees with luggage gathered outside Stockholm Central station after arriving in Sweden in September 2015.. Image: Frankie Fouganthin / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 4.0

Integration cannot be ordered from one side. A person can learn Swedish, work, pay tax, raise children and follow the law. But becoming part of a society also requires that the society offer security, equal treatment and a believable answer to the question: if I do all this, will I ever be accepted as one of you?

Sweden’s current migration programme exposes the contradiction. It says integration should enable people to become full members of society, then surrounds that promise with stricter tests of conduct, language, self-sufficiency and values. It says Sweden wants foreign

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