The Swedish government on Friday announced it intends to restrict immigration from the new EU member states for at least two yearsThe proposal [PDF] is outlined in English here. Quotes for this post taken from this article.. It held a press conference, available online, which I watched, and didn’t quite follow, but I got the impression reporters’ questions were being incredibly softball. Did one guy really ask, “what are you going to do to prevent Eastern European Gypsies from moving here”?

So here is my list of questions I wish somebody had asked at the press conference todayIf somebody did ask them, my apologies.:

ONE: Migration Minister Barbro Holmberg, you say that these immigration restrictions on EU citizens from eastern Europe are temporary, to be lifted in 2 (or 5 or 7) years, in order to make the transition to a common EU labor market more gradual. Can you explain what exactly you expect will change between now and then that will make the challenges you say exist now go away in 2 (or 5 or 7) years? Are you planning on gradually diminishing social security for everyone in the meantime? Are you planning on loosening labor laws in the meantime? Do you need more time to convice the electorate that cheap immigrant labor benefits immigrants as producers and Swedes as consumers? Or are you waiting for Eastern Europe to become rich? Or are you are just postponing politically difficult decisions, even if economically it is clear which is the best policy?

TWO: All other EU countries are intent on applying immigration restrictions on new members. If Sweden were not to do so, it would have the pick of the crop, the best and the brightest, the most motivated and the most mobile of Eastern Europe’s talent all to itself. Why are you forgoing this wonderful opportunity for economic growth? Aren’t these the kind of immigrants you want? Do you want the economy to stagnate?

THREE: Minister Holmberg, earlier you said,

“We welcome workers from the new member states, but we say that when one comes to Sweden to work it must be real work and for a wage one can live off.”Vi välkomnar arbetstagare från de nya medlemsstaterna, men vi säger att när man kommer till Sverige och arbetar så ska det vara till ett riktigt arbete och det ska vara med en lön som går att leva på.

Has it occurred to the government that if immigrants were able to ask competitive wages, perhaps it wouldn’t cost so much to live in Sweden?

FOUR: One effect of your policy would be to protect Swedish jobs vulnerable to cheap immigrant labor, such as those in the construction industry. Given that your restrictions must eventually expire, it is inevitable that immigrants will largely take over these industries the moment they are allowed to compete on price. Are you actively lobbying LO (the umbrella trade union) to spend its considerable resources retraining these at-risk Swedish workers in the meantime, or do you instead expect LO to spend its considerable resources lobbying you to prolong these restrictions for as long as possible?

FIVE: Folkpartiet is expected to come out with a counterproposal soon, and an eventual compromise is not out of the question, DN reports.
 
“I don’t understand how anyone can be against this proposal.” Labor Minister Hans Karlsson, when you said,

Jag förstår inte hur någon kan vara emot det här förslaget.

You were kidding, right?

On Thursday I set out to blog a panel discussion at the Swedish Institute of International Affairs on a topic dear to my heart: “Is integration still possible?“. It was sponsored by The Economist, and one of their writers, Joel Budd, was on the panel. The government’s representative was Lise Bergh, the number two in charge of “democracy an integration issues” under minister Mona Sahlin. A further two panelists were late replacements: Mahin Alipour, an immigrant from Iran, a left-leaning (even for Sweden) activist for women’s rights; and Mauricio Rojas, once a far-left political refugee from Chile in 1973, now a professor in economic history at Lund University and a solidly liberal member of parliament, in league with the FolkPartiet.

What, if anything, new did I take away from the proceedings? By far the strongest impression made on me was by RojasIn researching Rojas I came across this interesting read: A paper by him entitled The Historical Roots of the Swedish Socialist Experiment [PDF]. Definitely worth it if you have a spare 20 minutes — it answers, to a large extent, some questions I posed here.. I had quite simply no idea that there are in fact Swedish politicians who can be strident and articulate and even combative in a debate, and it was an absolute pleasure to watch. It helps that he was stating basic economic truths, some of which I’ve harped on before: If immigrants in Sweden are not allowed to compete on price, they are not going to find official employment. As a result, the unemployment rate for immigrants is far higher than that for native Swedes, which produces an underclass of immigrants excluded from formal participation in the economy. These immigrants do work, of course, on the black market; but they also become long-term recipients of social allowances, which irritates native Swedes. According to Rojas, we have racism through exclusion, but with this exclusion being a direct result of political choices made by the government.

Joel Budd added, for good measure, that it would be a “foolish source of national pride that everybody who is working legally is making a lot of money.” Budd also underlined some other observations made recently in The Economist and elsewhere: In ethnically diverse societies, people stop supporting welfare, because one is less inclined to give neighbors social security if they are from a different backgroundThis is not a reason to stop welfare preëmptively, of course. That would be committing a naturalistic fallacy. Nor should it be a reason to stop immigration.. And welfare states don’t just have a hard time adapting to immigration, they have a hard time adapting to all kinds of social, economic and technological change.

By the time they were done, the question being debated was no longer “Is integration still possible?” but “Is the welfare state still possible?” Is cultural homogeneity a precondition for the welfare state? Will Sweden have to choose between immigration and a generous safety net? Bergh looked somewhat taken aback at the notion there might have to be a choice; she could have answered — or at least, I would have answered — that crucial elements of the welfare state could be salvaged if only Sweden were to make wages more flexible and loosen labor laws. A vibrant job-creating economy would depend less on welfare to help citizens and recent immigrants get by; welfare would become just a means to a more useful placement in the job market, and hence would take up fewer resources.

But she didn’t say this. If I heard her correctly, she actually said that wage flexibility was not necessary, and that other resources (which ones?) would be put to work to prevent this choice — immigration or welfare — from becoming pressing. She could also have told Rojas that Sweden’s liberals were looking a bit too gleeful at the prospect of this choice, given their objective to dismantle welfareAren’t there better reasons to dismantle the welfare state?; could Sweden not perhaps buck the trend where immigration leads to less social solidarity, and hence a diminishing of support for welfare? The country is among the most welcoming of any immigrant nation, together with the US and UK, and especially when compared with Denmark, the Netherlands and France. Tension surrounding immigrants in Belgium stems from prejudices that were in place in the native population from the very first day that gastarbeiders arrived in the 60s. This does not strike me as having been the case in Sweden; Sweden began its immigrant experience with a positive attitude, and as a result many have thrived, integrated, and given back to the community that took them in — look at Rojas. Also to Sweden’s credit, there is no anti-immigrant Vlaams Blok here — there simply is no popular support for it.

One question which did not come up in the discussion was restrictions to access to welfare for immigrants from the new EU countries. I asked Rojas about it after the debate, and his answer was a little curious: He thought that while of course it was an important political matter, in the long run the issue was not so important, and in any case, on Friday the government would submit its proposal for dealing with this so we should wait and see. It sounded a little like there was some kind of compromise in the air.

On Monday I attended a “debate” in the press room of the foreign ministry, topic Hur ser dom på Sverige? — How do they (foreigners) see Sweden? “Debate” is in scare quotes precisely because there was nothing scary to it. Everybody on the panel was über-polite to one another, agreed with everything, thought it worth adding a point perhaps or underscoring a particular sentiment while the audience snarfed down some rather fine wine during working hours. This audience consisted primarily of aging foreign correspondents, who during question time proceeded to ask questions that were really answers, to which the very polite panel listened intently.

The stunning conclusion: The image Sweden has abroad does not correspond exactly to reality. As to why this might be the case, the consensus was that there had been a miscommunication somewhere, a failure shared by both Swedes and foreign correspondents to be as accurate as they could be.

While various anecdotes to this effect were recounted over the course of an hour and a half, I devised an alternative theory, which I’ll run by you now. Could it be, possibly, that Sweden fulfills an indispensable role in national political debates everywhere as an ideal — a shorthand for an kind of polity against which to compare the local failures or successes? Perhaps American Republicans require Sweden to be a socialist suicide central. Perhaps Eastern Europeans demand that Sweden be a capitalist success. Maybe Southern Europe wants Sweden to be efficient. I can go on, put you get my point.

Against such a deluge of idealizing for local consumption, there is not much that Sweden can do, besides perhaps trying to ride on the coattails of a net positive fallout. What’s so bad about being a land of blonde athletic reserved singing nudists? It beats being a land of beery pedophiles, right?

If my theory is right, then a far more interesting (and difficult) question to answer is, Why Sweden? Why has Sweden, and not Finland or Canada or Australia, become a global yardstick for measuring progress, especially if, arguably, Sweden itself does not measure up to the myth? I don’t know the answer, but I think, in part, it has to do with historical accident; and once Sweden was typecast as the Jean-Luc Picard of nations, boldly going, it was a role so compelling that subsequent career turns just haven’t registered. There needs to be a Sweden on the world stage; if it didn’t exist, they’d have to invent one.

If Sweden ever wants to opt out of this role, it will not suffice to write more letters to the editors. Drastic measures will be needed. Drastic measures like… “When Good Swedes Go Bad!” the TV show, from the people that brought you “When Good Pets Go Bad!” and “When Chefs Attack!” I envisage the pitch would go something like this:

A fascinating, frightening program that shows what can happen when sweet, doting, responsible Swedes revert to their natural behaviour. Amazing, never-before seen footage of shocking real-life incidents will show ordinary members of Swedish society letting their true instincts take over:
 
— A CEO savagely guts his company for personal gain
— An unemployed loser turns on his foreign minister
— A tame village pastor murders his wife once too often!
— An alcoholic shoots the prime minister in the back
 
These are just a few of the horrifying events that are caught on camera and give us all a lesson in what can happen when government fails to act responsibly and treat its citizens humanely. Earth’s best friend? You will never look at Swedes in the same way again after you see what happens ÎWhen Good Swedes Go Bad’.

That should do it.