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.

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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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