This week’s Sweden in Focus Extra features an interview with Brenda and Marcus Ramström, a couple in western Sweden who speak to The Local days before she is forced to return to her native Brazil following a Migration Court ruling.

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Brenda Ramström, a former Northvolt worker, is 21 weeks pregnant as she boards a flight on Tuesday for the first leg of a gruelling 23 hour journey to Brazil.

She has no clear idea of when she will be allowed to return to Sweden.

She and her husband Marcus tell The Local's Emma Löfgren that they were shocked and devastated when they received confirmation in late September that Brenda had four weeks to leave Sweden of her own volition or risk an entry ban.

Tune in to this week's Sweden in Focus Extra for the full story.

Read also: ‘I want to be with my husband’: Pregnant woman forced to leave Sweden

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This week: First month post-election ends with no government, breakthrough on ending teen deportations, a plan to help citizenship applicants hit retroactively by the new law, and a reminder of some of the best things about living in Sweden.

More than a month has passed since Sweden’s election, and we still don’t have a government. As we were recording this week's episode, the Social Democrat leader Magdalena Andersson lost a vote in parliament on installing her as prime minister. So what happens now?

Host James Savage is joined this week by panelists Mandy Pipher and Emma Löfgren.

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Here are links to some of the topics discussed in the episode:

• Does losing parliament vote mean Andersson can't be Sweden's next PM?
• Moderates hit five-year high in Swedish post-election poll as Liberals slip

• How Sweden's 'new majority' can already move on deportations and citizenship
• All Swedish parties back emergency freeze on teen deportations
• Swedish MP seeks to apply old rules to all pre-June 6th citizenship applicants

• Remembering what I love about this country

Thumbnail photo: Fredrik Sandberg/TT

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This week’s Sweden in Focus Extra features an interview with AI consultant Anna Bärlund, who won an appeal last week against her Swedish citizenship rejection.

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On June 6th, Sweden rolled out major new citizenship reforms that included increasing the length of time that the partners of Swedish citizens have to live in Sweden before they become eligible for citizenship from three years to seven years.

What's more, the government didn't include transitional rules for those already in the queue despite the protestations of legal experts.

Consequently, many people who met the requirements when they applied are now being rejected. Until now Sweden's courts have sided with the Migration Agency, so when The Local's Emma Löfgren learned that Anna Bärlund had won her appeal, she was curious to find out more.

READ ALSO:

• AI consultant wins appeal under Sweden’s new citizenship rules

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This week: Tortuous efforts to form a government, plans to stop teen deportations, how new rules on family reunification could make life harder for university researchers, and what do The Local’s readers miss most when living in Sweden?

The four parties that claimed victory in the election are still a long way from forming a government, but there has been movement this week as they agreed to meet in person.

The parties will meet on Friday at a luxury hotel on the island of Lidingö, near Stockholm. But the plan is not to negotiate; instead they will be given a series of briefings on the problems facing Sweden.

The initiative came from the Centre Party, which has taken a lot of the blame for the lack of progress due to its insistence that the Left Party be denied ministerial posts in any coalition. But will it break the deadlock?

Host James Savage is joined this week by panelists Mandy Pipher and Richard Orange.

Not yet a member of The Local? Join now with this special offer for podcast listeners.

Here are links to some of the topics discussed in the episode:

• Four-party meeting set to test Sweden's government potential
• Magdalena Andersson once again given job of building new Swedish government

• What's in Sweden's new law on family reunification?
• Q&A: How will Sweden's new family immigration law affect researchers?
• Q&A: Who is affected by Sweden's new law on family immigration?

• Sweden's centre-left parties agree on halting teen deportations
• Sweden's migration minister pledges long-term solution to teen deportations

• 'Flavourful food and friendliness': What foreigners in Sweden miss from 'home'

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Gift Blessing is only 24 years old, but has already achieved an enormous amount. He is a rapper, an author, a newspaper columnist, and a poet.

He came to Sweden as a quota refugee from the Democratic Republic of Congo as a young child. He broke through to public consciousness in 2021 with a bravura rap performance in Sweden's Got Talent (Talang).

Last month he was made Sweden's official reading ambassador with a mission to get young people reading.

And this week he is releasing an anthology of writing in English from writers from all around the world, but who are based in Stockholm.

This week's Sweden in Focus Extra features Gift Blessing in conversation with The Local's James Savage.

READ ALSO:

• In Sweden, there are only good, bad, ugly and evil immigrants – a recent long read for The Local by Faisal Khan, one of the contributors to the new anthology, 'Upon All the Living'.

Thumbnail photo by Maja Brand.

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Magdalena Andersson was acclaimed as the winner of Sweden’s election. Four parties – adding up to a majority – said they wanted her to be prime minister, and she was charged by the speaker with forming a government. Yet on Monday she threw in the towel.

The immediate pretext was the decision by the Left Party to support the re-election of speaker Andreas Norlén, a Moderate, over the Social Democrats’ own candidate.

But it followed two weeks in which Andersson had failed to get the Centre Party, Left Party and Greens to so much as take a cup of coffee with each other.

Now it’s up to the speaker to find someone else willing to have a go.

Host James Savage is joined this week by panelists Emma Löfgren and Richard Orange.

Not yet a member of The Local? Join now with this special offer for podcast listeners.

Here are links to some of the topics discussed in the episode:

• Social Democrat Magdalena Andersson abandons attempt to form a government
• Strategy or spite? Why is Magda giving up on forming Sweden's next government?
• EXPLAINED: What needs to happen for Sweden to get a new prime minister?
• From the obvious to the unthinkable: Nine options for Sweden's government

• 'But what are the rules?': My interview with the Swedish Migration Agency's legal chief

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Not yet a member of The Local? Join now with this special offer for podcast listeners.

Sweden's government tightened rules for citizenship earlier this year without transitional rules for people who had already applied. The new rules require eight years of residency instead of five for most applicants, and would-be citizens must now pass language and civics tests.

The Migration Court in Malmö looked very closely recently at a case in which an applicant appealed for their right to be awarded citizenship according to the old rules. But the court ruled against the citizenship applicant in a blow to people who had waited in the queue and were hoping to become Swedish citizens under the rules that were in place at the time of application.

Some hope was restored however when the judge told The Local's Richard Orange that an appeal to a higher court could succeed.

In this week's episode you can hear an excerpt from the interview with Judge Löndahl we well as a studio discussion about the case and what happens next.

Host James Savage is joined this week by panelists Emma Löfgren and Richard Orange.

READ ALSO:

• Chief judge expects Swedish citizenship case to head to highest migration court
• INTERVIEW: 'The last word has not yet been said on Swedish citizenship'

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In this week's podcast: Electoral fraud allegations, complex coalition building, Candy Crush maker faces strike action, and how do Swedes say 'Digestive biscuit'?

Negotiations between the centre-left parties are ongoing after they won a wafer thin majority in last week’s election.

But now a voter fraud scandal involving the Left Party threatens to derail the whole process.

Police are investigating the circumstances surrounding the election of a Left Party Member of Parliament in the Dalarna region. What do know about the allegations so far? And could the scandal lead to a revote?

Host James Savage is joined this week by panelists Emma Löfgren and Richard Orange.

Not yet a member of The Local? Join now with this special offer for podcast listeners.

Here are links to some of the topics discussed in the episode:

• Swedish Left Party leader finally speaks on election fraud allegations
• Swedish Election Authority criticises ballot paper system
• Newly elected MP steps aside amid Swedish electoral fraud probe

• EXPLAINED: What needs to happen for Sweden to get a new prime minister?
• Behind closed doors, Sweden's Left and Centre parties are still miles apart

• UPDATE: Strike threat lifted as Candy Crush maker signs collective agreement
• More unions join pending strike at Swedish Candy Crush maker
• Q&A: Why Swedish unions are launching a strike at the games maker King

Zara Larsson clip credit: Heart Radio

Thumbnail photo: Left Party leader Nooshi Dadgostar. Magnus Hjalmarson Neideman/SVD/TT

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