Another tick in the box

Time for another pat on the back for Migrationsverket. They need these. On the 23rd of August, I submitted my application for Swedish citizenship. Yesterday when I came home, being 22nd of September, I found a letter from Migrationsverket waiting for me, approving my application and granting me citizenship. Now that's service !

I've read horror stories recently of people waiting 18 months for a decision to be made on their citizenship application. The Migrationsverket website, and the nice lady we spoke with on the phone, advised that 5 months is the current average waiting time. So I reckon that 4 weeks deserves a round of applause and an early Friday finish.

The process I went through was pretty straight forward. It's hard to get it wrong if you read the instructions properly. First up there is an on-line application form. You don't have to complete it on-line, but they do say that it will speed up the application process. Anything to help them, I say. So we spent about 5 minutes completing the form and paying the application fee directly on-line. Then we printed the completed form out, signed it, and sent it away to Migrationsverket with my passport. Exactly as they requested. There's a very good guide that accompanies the form, and it's worth reading right through that first, as there were some parts of the form that I didn't need to concern myself with. If I have to criticise the form I would say that it's not very clear about the circumstances which require different parts of the form to be completed. You could come unstuck there quite easily. One example is a section to be filled in by one's partner. It was only when reading the guide that I found out that married couples registered in Sweden can skip that section. And that the request on the form to attached a police certificate doesn't apply if you complete the form on-line. For some reason. So a few things like that which can foul up your application if you don't do your homework first.

I thought I might have a problem with my NZ passport, which I had to send in with my application. Since arriving in Sweden, my NZ passport had expired, and I had obtained a new passport from the good people at NZ House in London. The problem now was that the passport number I was writing on my citizenship application was not the same passport number they had for me when I had applied for residency. So I expected questions and delays over that. To try and help I also included my original, but expired, passport with my posted application. No questions, so it may have helped.

So why are some people getting processed in weeks, while others are almost in years? I've heard rumours that applications coming from countries where identities etc are easier to confirm, are handled by different people to those who handle applications from other countries. Because there are typically fewer of us applying, that queue is much shorter and the processing time much quicker. I don't know if that's true or not, but if you hear of someone receiving their citizenship in a matter of weeks it tends to be coming mostly out of NZ or Australian mouths. So there might be some truth in that. While it's worked out great for me, it's not a very fair system. People should be dealt with in the order they arrive, I believe. Not many people get to choose the country they are born in, so it's not fair they should be punished for it. On the other side, I can appreciate why Sweden needs to take more time over some applications than others. It's a difficult balancing act which maybe runs a bit too close to the discrimination boundaries. If that is indeed the system.

Another factor which I'm convinced plays a significant role in processing times, is with people sending in wrong or incomplete informtion. Simply not taking the time to read and understand what is being asked of them. Assuming that because they think what they are sending in is good enough, that everyone else will think the same way. I've seen this time and time again, the world over. You can't fight beaurocracy and win. No one ever does. It's their rules if you want to play the game. Be it unfair or unjust, it's still the way that it is.

I'm a little disappointed that everything simply arrived by post. No ceremony, presentation by the mayor or singing of the national athemn like my wife enjoyed in New Zealand. I'd been practicing Sommarnatt and Öppna Landskap for ages. At least I'll be all set for New Years Eve now.