Advertisement

'Ban dual citizens from serving in the Riksdag'

The Local Sweden
The Local Sweden - [email protected]
'Ban dual citizens from serving in the Riksdag'

The Sweden Democrats want to ban people with dual nationality from serving in the Riksdag, according to a secret document sent to the Parliamentary Investigative Service (Riksdagens Utredningstjänst, RUT) and published by newspaper Expressen.

Advertisement

“It is our opinion that the law should be changed so that only candidates with solely Swedish citizenship can be elected to the Swedish Riksdag,” wrote former party spokesman on justice policy Kent Ekeroth in the most recent motion, which was received by the Parliamentary Investigative Service in October.

Some six months earlier, a previous motion to RUT had shown that the Sweden Democrats wanted the office to map out and make a registry of “which members have dual citizenship”.

However, at that time the Sweden Democrats were turned down by RUT due to the drain such an investigation would be on resources - as well as a risk that making a register of such personal information on the MPs would be in breach of Swedish information and privacy laws.

But in October, the party handed in a new motion to RUT, seeking to impose a ban on people with a dual citizenship from serving in the Riksdag.

The Sweden Democrats’ requests regarding a nationality restriction have so far been unknown to the other members of parliament, as all requests to RUT are confidential.

However, when the document became known, it sparked concerns on both sides of the political spectrum.

“It sounds completely hair-raising. What is the aim? Are they trying to raise doubts about these MPs loyalty to Sweden,” the Social Democrat spokesman on justice policy Morgan Johansson told Expressen.

“This is what they spend their time on – to define who is out and who is in – trying to split Sweden into us and them. It is what they live on,” justice policy spokesman for the Liberals (Folkpartiet) Johan Pehrson told the paper.

According to Sweden Democrats spokesman Martin Kinnunen, he has heard of the motion but is not full conversant with its content.

“I don’t actually know the reasoning behind the raised question,” he told Expressen.

The Local/rm

twitter.com/thelocalsweden

More

Join the conversation in our comments section below. Share your own views and experience and if you have a question or suggestion for our journalists then email us at [email protected].
Please keep comments civil, constructive and on topic – and make sure to read our terms of use before getting involved.

Please log in to leave a comment.

See Also