Today in Sweden: A roundup of the latest news on Monday​on August 18, 2025 at 6:29 am

Minister calls for government to ‘pull handbrake’ on work permit salary hike

Sweden’s employment minister Johan Britz has called on the government to drop plans to increase the salary threshold for a work permit to 100 percent of the median salary, pointing to warnings from businesses of the “consequences”. 

“Companies and public employers have been very clear about the consequences they see if we go ahead and take this next step. Therefore, we think it is time to pull the handbrake and not go any further,”  Britz told the DN newspaper.

The Migration Agency recently provided a list of 152 job titles that should potentially be excused from the new salary threshold. But Britz said he was critical of the planned system of exceptions which he said was “badly designed”. 

“If you have a list of 152 exceptions, there will be a lot of boundary problems. There will always be professions that go in and out, which of course creates great uncertainty for employers,” he said. 

Swedish vocabulary: felkonstruerat – badly constructed 

Minister makes u-turn on patients from Gaza

Sweden’s healthcare minister Acko Ankarberg Johansson has said that Sweden is now prepared to fly patients injured in Gaza to Sweden, reversing the government’s previous position. 

“This applies to all the places in the world that are currently being shaken by major humanitarian pressures on the civilian population,” Ankarberg Johansson said in response to a question from the Green Party’s spokesperson Daniel Helldén. 

Ankarberg Johansson has previously claimed that Sweden’s healthcare was too short-staffed to take patients from Gaza.

Swedish vocabulary: humanitära påfrestningar – humanitarian pressures

Trial of former national security advisor begins

The trial of Sweden’s former national security advisor Henrik Landerholm begins on Monday. Landerholm has been charged for ‘negligence with classified documents’, over leaving secret documents behind at a conference hotel near Stockholm on March 13th 2023. 

The meeting was a secret talk between Landerholm and US national security advisor Jake Sullivan, which took place when Sweden was struggling to win Turkish approval for its Nato membership. 

According to DN, the documents were based on classified information from Säpo and the Swedish Armed Forces which would “endanger Sweden’s security” if leaked. 

Landerholm’s lawyer Johan Eriksson says that his client is insisting on his innocence, adding that the documents were no threat to Sweden’s security. 

Swedish vocabulary: kvarglömd – left behind/forgotten  

Rentals in student cities on the rise 

A second-hand one-bedroom apartment in major student centres costs on average between 7,000 and just over 9,000 kronor per month, according to a new study by the comparison service Zmarta. Sweden’s SFS student union reports that rents in regular student housing have also risen sharply in 2025.

“There is a chronic and systematic housing crisis,” Rasmus Lindstedt, SFS chairman, told the DN newspaper. “Rents are high, waiting times are long and many are forced to turn down education. Ultimately, this is a class issue: students from economically weaker households are opting out of attractive educational programs.”