EU country’s huge migration crackdown revealed – shows UK how it’s done | Politics | News

Sweden saw a dramatic decrease in the number of people applying for asylum last year. According to the data, there was a 30% decrease in applications in the Scandinavian country between 2024 and 2025.

This sharp decline follows the election in 2022 of a center-right Swedish government backed by the anti-immigration Sweden Democrats and running on an anti-immigration list. In the last decade, the country has seen an increase in violent crimes and murders linked to organized crime in major cities due to massive immigration. Swedish Immigration Minister Johan Forssell welcomed several measures taken by the government to restrict immigration, including introducing strict conditions for gaining citizenship and increasing deportations.

“The number of asylum seekers in Sweden continued to decline in 2025. This is a sharp decline. A 30 percent drop in just one year.”

From next year, migrants who choose to voluntarily return to their home country from 2026 will be eligible to receive payments of up to 350,000 kroner (around £28,000).

Data from the Swedish Immigration Agency shows that Sweden issued 79,684 residence permits in 2025, of which only 6% were linked to asylum claims. This is down from 18% in 2018, when 133,025 permits were issued.

In parallel, last year 8,312 people left Sweden to return to their home countries.

Forssell added: “The change is not just about the numbers on reduced immigration, it is also about how those arriving in Sweden are made up of asylum seekers at a record low rate.”

Sweden is followed by Germany, which has imposed intense restrictions on immigration in order to address concerns about increased support for far-right parties.

Germany has seen the number of illegal immigrants trying to enter the country fall to its lowest level in more than a decade, excluding the first year of the pandemic.

The surprising reduction occurred under the watchful eye of Germany’s CDU Chancellor, Friedrich Merz.

The conservative politician had promised to take tough measures against immigration during the 2025 federal elections. In the first eleven months of last year, 106,298 first-time asylum applications were registered by the national migration agency Bamf.

This puts Germany on track for its lowest annual total since 2013. By comparison, the figure in 2024 was more than double at 229,751.