Answer to submitter. Let Swedish citizens live with Ukrainian life partners
Reply to the submitter « Let Ukrainian refugees who married Swedes stay »:
I am a Swedish citizen, born and raised here. I have done my military duty, worked, paid tax and lived responsibly. Still, I-and many other Swedes in the same situation-have a worse opportunity to live with a life partner from Ukraine than, for example, a labor immigrant or an EU citizen has.
We applied for a residence permit as cohabitants even before the war. My partner stayed in Ukraine throughout the long processing time. Then came the invasion. Her home was bombed in the first few days. Where else would she seek protection, if not in the person she already had an established and loving relationship with?
But instead In order to test her case as a relative – which should have been possible – her application was rejected because of the EU mass escape directive. What would be a protective mechanism for people on the run was transformed into an obstacle to people who had already done everything right.
Today, EU citizens who move to Sweden have the right to bring a partner from a country outside the EU. Anyone who comes here to work can bring their spouse directly. But Swedish citizens are denied the opportunity to have their relationship tested – just because the one you love happened to escape from a certain country under a certain protection. It is not legally secure. It is not worthy of a legal society.
Love cannot be guided by statistics or boundaries. No one can figure out in advance from which country you will meet the person who becomes even the second half. But for us who met it – and who have built a life together here – we are now met by a cold, steadfast system that says: « Not so, not so, not you. »
I urge Sweden’s government and parliament: Give Swedish citizens the same rights as others and ensure that the Mass Escape Directive is not used to make it impossible for cohabitation and security – in our own homes, in our own country.
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