Sweden Unveils Sweeping Security and Justice Reforms: Deportation Rules Tightened, Psychological Violence Criminalised

The Swedish government has filed ten major propositions to parliament in a single week, representing the most concentrated legislative offensive of the 2025/26 session, with measures spanning stricter deportation rules, strengthened public assembly security, enhanced civilian preparedness, and a landmark criminalisation of psychological violence.

When governments move this fast, they are usually running towards something or away from it. In Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson's case, the answer may be both. With the September 2026 general election now barely seven months away, the Tidö coalition has unleashed a torrent of legislation that touches some of Sweden's most contentious policy nerves—immigration enforcement, public safety, national defence preparedness, and domestic violence.

The Deportation Hammer

The most politically charged measure, presented at a government press conference on 25 February, is a legislative referral to the Council on Legislation (lagrådsremiss) proposing significantly stricter rules for deportation of foreign nationals convicted of crimes. The proposal lowers the threshold for expulsion and broadens the categories of offences that can trigger removal proceedings.

This move fulfils a central plank of the Tidö Agreement—the four-party compact that has defined the parameters of Sweden's migration policy since October 2022. It arrives at a moment when immigration remains the issue most likely to determine the election outcome, with polls consistently showing it as voters' top concern alongside healthcare and public safety.

A New Criminal Frontier: Psychological Violence

Perhaps the most legally significant proposition in the package is Prop. 2025/26:138, which introduces a dedicated criminal provision for psychological violence. Sweden would join a small but growing group of European nations—including France, England and Wales, and Ireland—that have moved to explicitly criminalise coercive control and sustained psychological abuse.

The proposition addresses a gap long identified by domestic violence advocates: that Swedish criminal law has struggled to capture patterns of controlling behaviour that cause severe psychological harm but may not meet the threshold for existing assault or threat offences. If enacted, it would represent one of the most significant expansions of Swedish criminal law in recent years.

Fortress Sweden: Public Safety and Preparedness

Two propositions address Sweden's evolving security landscape from different angles. Prop. 2025/26:133 strengthens security requirements for public assemblies and events, reflecting concerns about both terrorism risks and the increasingly volatile public order environment around demonstrations—an issue that gained urgency after the Quran-burning protests of 2023-2024.

Prop. 2025/26:142 takes a longer view, enhancing protections for the civilian population during heightened military preparedness. This proposition is a direct legislative response to Sweden's NATO membership, which has accelerated the overhaul of civil defence structures that had been allowed to atrophy since the end of the Cold War. The measure strengthens the legal framework for civilian shelters, evacuation procedures, and the integration of civilian and military preparedness planning.

The Broader Legislative Picture

Beyond the headline measures, the week's filing burst includes propositions on rural employment and housing (Prop. 2025/26:131), new rules for shares on multilateral trading facility platforms (Prop. 2025/26:125), improved migration rules for researchers and doctoral students alongside measures to combat residence permit abuse (Prop. 2025/26:146), ratification of ILO conventions on workplace violence and occupational safety (Prop. 2025/26:134), elimination of the mandatory introductory course for supervised driving (Prop. 2025/26:127), and a reform of social insurance qualification requirements (Prop. 2025/26:136).

Additionally, a departmental memorandum (Ds) on electronic monitoring as a social services tool for child protection was released on 24 February, alongside a remiss on a proposed legislative council referral on the same topic—suggesting the government intends to move swiftly on youth welfare reform.

Ukraine: Four Years On

The legislative offensive coincides with a significant moment in foreign policy. On 24 February—the fourth anniversary of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine—Foreign Minister Maria Malmer Stenergard addressed a public rally at Sergels Torg in Stockholm under the banner "Sweden Stands Up for Ukraine." The government simultaneously announced 230 million SEK in humanitarian aid to Ukraine, underscoring the bipartisan consensus on continued support.

What It Means

The scale and pace of this legislative push signals a government entering election mode with a clear strategic calculation: to demonstrate decisive action on security, law and order, and national preparedness before parliamentary time runs short. The Riksdag will need to process these propositions through committee review before the summer recess, creating a compressed timeline that will test both the coalition's discipline and the opposition's capacity to scrutinise.

For the Social Democrats, who lead in most polls, the challenge is to engage substantively with each proposal rather than be overwhelmed by the volume. For the Sweden Democrats, whose confidence-and-supply arrangement has shaped the government's migration posture, the deportation rules represent a delivered promise they can campaign on. The question is whether the broader package—from psychological violence law to ILO convention ratification—reflects genuine policy coherence or an end-of-term legislative clearance sale.

What to Watch

• Committee Processing: With ten propositions to review before summer recess, parliamentary committees face an unusually compressed schedule that may limit scrutiny depth.
• Opposition Response: How Socialdemokraterna and other opposition parties prioritise their engagement across this broad legislative front will shape the pre-election debate.
• Deportation Debate: The lagrådsremiss on stricter deportation rules is expected to generate the most intense political and public discourse, with civil liberties implications under scrutiny.