Yamal Peninsula, where your money will no longer be going pic: siberiantimes.com
In order to support Swedish companies in their efforts to export goods and services, Sweden has offered export credits in the form of guarantees or loans. DN reports that in 2017, these export credits had a total value of 3 billion kronor. A small part of that money, about 0.5%, went to support the exploration and extraction of fossil fuels.
Not anymore. The government has directed the Swedish export credit system (Exportkreditnämnden) to look into how they can contribute to lessening greenhouse gases. To that end, all investing in exploring and extracting fossil fuels will be ended by 2022 at the latest.
This directive is to come even more into compliance with the Paris Agreement, which Sweden ratified in October, 2016. In this agreement, financial products were included in measures to be taken to lessen CO2 emissions.
Much of the 0.5% was spent in fossil fuel extraction in the Yamal Peninsula in Siberia, where the amount of greenhouse gases estimated to have been released was 5.3 million tons – almost a tenth of Sweden’s entire emissions (DN.se/greenhouse). This was first revealed by the TV4 news program “Cold Facts” (Kalla Fakta).
(Too bad TV4 is no longer able to be seen on TV by a full third of the country: Com hem (owned by Telia’s only competitor Tele2) hasn’t been able to reach a distribution agreement with TV4 (owned by Telia, which is 38% owned by the Swedish state). See this post. Let’s hope we can count on the state television news channels SVT1 and SVT2 to reveal similar news when necessary.)
“This is an extremely important step we’re taking, to show that we are the country to watch (föregångsland)” said Minister for Foreign Trade Anna Hallberg at a press conference earlier today (SvD.se/greenhouse). “It’s an important measure with which we can deal with the climate crisis in the world.”
Erlandsson and his hands leaving court pic: Jessica Gow /TT
Yesterday, the previous Minister for Rural Affairs (landsbygdsministern), and previous Center party politician, Eskil Erlandsson, was judged not guilty of sexual harassment by Stockholms District Court, DN reports. Erlandsson was accused of putting his hand on the thigh of three different women.
In one case, the court could not determine absolutely that the event had actually happened, and therefore dismissed the case.
In the second case, the court found that the defendant had indeed placed his hand on the woman’s pants-covered thigh not once, but twice, for a second or so. The court found, however, that this act did not have enough of a sexual nature to be criminal.
In the third case, the court found that the defendant had put his hand on the woman’s stockings-covered thigh, and had also fiddled with the hem of her skirt. Again, the court found that his touch did not have enough of a sexual nature as to be criminal. In a related judgement, the court did not find that any molestation (ofredande) had occurred either.
“Every touch that is perceived as unpleasant or unwished for isn’t prosecutable as molestation” the court wrote in a unanimous verdict.
But even Mårtin Schultz, SvD’s legal expert, wonders about this verdict just a little. “I wonder if there isn’t a gap between law and society’s standards here” Schultz writes. “Should it be allowed to briefly squeeze someone’s thigh for a moment? Should even momentary and less serious violations of physical integrity be protected by criminal law?”
Erlandsson first claimed he suffered from “the Viking sickness” (Vikingasjukan) in which the collagen in, say, the hand, thickens and shortens causing one or more fingers to crook – to crook and slip under the skirt lying on, say, the woman’s thigh you’ve just put your hand on, for instance.
To this, at least, the court gave no credence. But the verdict has made it clear that it’s ok to just give your female colleague a quick thigh squeeze because it’s not sexual enough for her to complain about.
It’s possible that jail time or day fines might be slightly over-prosecution (for more about day fines, see this blog) . But neither is it ok and something that should be put up with “because female” and boys will be boys. It’s too bad that the court could not render a more nuanced judgement. Just how many men’s thighs has Erlandsson put his hand on, one can wonder.
Greta Thunberg is Time Magazine’s Person of the Year. Which is pretty cool.
Time writes: “The politics of climate action are as entrenched and complex as the phenomenon itself, and Thunberg has no magic solution. But she has succeeded in creating a global attitudinal shift, transforming millions of vague, middle-of-the-night anxieties into a worldwide movement calling for urgent change. She has offered a moral clarion call to those who are willing to act, and hurled shame on those who are not” (Time.com).
Thunberg becomes the youngest person ever to be Person of the Year. The picture was taken on the coast of Portugal.
enjoying a wide variety of broadcasts pic: freepik.com
“There’s nothing on” is a favorite refrain, but the worry is now that the choice of things not to watch could be even less.
When Telia (the huge telecom company) got the go-ahead, and went ahead, to buy Bonnier Broadcasting there were some concerned voices. Namely that the Swedish state owns a whole 38% of Telia. Bonnier owned TV4 and C-more. Now that Telia bought Bonniers, the state now also owns a chunk of TV4 and C-more. Remember that the state also has the state-owned channels SVT1 and SVT2. This means that the state has pretty much a lock on a big part of the media landscape in Sweden.
There are many voices that say that the state doesn’t really, really control SVT1 and SVT2 – there are independent boards in between, there are laws saying the state can’t get too involved… but the uncomfortable fact remains that the state has pretty much a lock on a big part of the media landscape in Sweden.
One little uncomfortable blip came up only last week when SVT News announced that they planned a big new news program on SVT1 at 10pm every night. 10pm is when TV4 has (and has had for years) their own news program. This meant that the broadcasts conflicted with each other, and that “the public had to choose between the programs instead of being able to take advantage of a variety of news in the evenings” wrote TV4 journalists in a debate article. The journalists asserted that sending a news program at the exact same time as TV4 broke the newly agreed upon broadcasting license in which it is stated that SVT must work to present a variety of perspectives.
SVT changed their plans for their program, but the problem highlighted what can happen when they both largely belong to the same actor: two programs could easily have become one. Two perspectives could have become one. Representation could have been halved.
Both the Sweden Democrats and the Moderate party are pushing for the state to first look over how much of Telia and its network that the state should hold on to for national security purposes, and then to sell the rest, SvD reported back when the sale was initiated. Ibrahim Baylan, the social democratic Minister for Business, Industry and Innovation was less direct but said that it was up to Telia to be a responsible owner as the deal was getting a lot of political heat.
There’s been more shenanigans recently, although a TV4-less Christmas holiday has been avoided. Com hem, the cable distributor, is owned by Telias competitor Tele2. TV4 (now owned by Telia and by extension partly also by the state) is distributed by Com hem (DN.se/TV4). The contract between them is up at 12 tonight, but they somehow haven’t been able to reach a new agreement: TV4 was about to go to black on a third of Sweden’s televisions at the stroke of midnight. However, just this afternoon, TV4 said that they’d allow Com hem to send their programs without being paid for them until January 10th. In other words, fans of Jul med Ernst are saved. Also it would have looked bad for Telia (see above) if TV4 wasn’t able to be seen by a third of the country just when everyone is free to watch TV.
correction: news tweets have just gone out to say that TV4 will actually go to black at midnight tonight – the free offer wasn’t a free offer it turns out, and negotiations have broken down. This isn’t good, as it basically leaves viewers with SVT if they’d like some news besides from international cable channels. TV3 has The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills and Extreme Makeover: Home Edition though, so that’s something.
It’s time for the government to get out of the broadcasting business.
As expected, the government and its partners, the Center and Liberal parties, agreed today to postpone and rethink the Employment Service’s reform and privatisation. As written about in this post and this post, Jonas Sjöstedt threatened to bring a vote of no confidence to the floor if the government didn’t stop the reform. The Sweden Democrats (SD), as well as the Moderate and Christian Democratic parties, hopped on the Left party’s train. This was an unexpected development for the government, never having imagined these parties to side with each other on anything.
After a weekend of negotiations with the Center and Liberal parties – the Center party being the main instigator of the Service’s privatisation to begin with – the government has proposed a new timetable for the reform. As Göran Eriksson at SvD puts it, the government backed off on all the points that SD and the Moderate, Christian Democratic and Left parties agreed upon and had a majority in parliament to back it up with, but kept the points that those parties didn’t agree on and didn’t therefore have a parliamentary majority on. In other words, the government satisfied the SD, Moderate and Christian Democratic demands, but not all of the Left party’s demands. How the Center, for whom this matter was close to the heart, is going to frame the postponement remains to be seen.
The gist of the new proposal is that “the law of free system choice” (Lagen om valfrihetssystem, or LOV) will not be the only regulation implemented for employment actors ( – so not just private employment companies will be allowed to help job seekers, but also public organizations like the current employment service and even voluntary organisations can be involved). The government has also gone along with instituting a control system so that there is some kind of check on which companies are being paid from public coffers for doing what. Finally, the reform timetable is being put off a year, to 2022 (DN.se/reform).
So the government is saved, and what remains is how the parties are spinning it. Liberal party leader Nyamko Sabuni, one of the government’s supporting parties, is insisting (despite all evidence to the contrary) that the Left party had no influence over the government’s decision (according to the January agreement that allowed Löfven to hold onto power, the Left party is not “allowed” to have any influence over government policy). The Moderate party is calling the Liberal statement “nonsense“. As previously noted in this blog, Löfven is likely delighted over the postponement.
What he is likely not at all delighted about is this newfound spirit of cooperation between opposition parties with completely different political bents. It is hard to see where they might cooperate next (and they’re certainly not saying) but who knows. The Left party didn’t mind using public support from SD to get their way – gasp – which was also somewhat interesting (they didn’t have lunch or anything though). The Moderate party leader has had lunch with the SD leader Jimmie Åkesson just recently, but now has also just backed the Left party.
What bizarre political constellations can possibly follow?
the Handke nomination still causing an uproar pic: Armend Nimani/AFP/Getty
Besides Lucia and her flickering crown on the 13th, the other bright point in the otherwise compact darkness of December is the Nobel festivities. We will certainly miss the late permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy, Sara Danius, a bright point in a bright point, and the way she would sweep down the stairs in a fabulous dress (putting everyone else to shame in more ways than one).
Sara Danius at the Nobel festivities pic: DN.se
Despite frantic measures to put the Nobel Prize for Literature back on its feet, it was again lambasted this year for its choice for the 2019 prize. Already two members of the external committee that helps the Academy choose a prize winner have stepped down this last week, and now, a long-term member of the Academy, Peter Englund, has said he will not participate in the award ceremony in protest of the 2019 choice, Peter Handke.
The critique of Peter Handke is in regard to his not very critical stance towards the Serbian regime during the war in former Yugoslavia. He is accused, among other things, of relativising mass murder, and of denying the genocide of 8000 muslim men and boys in Srebrenica in 1995 (SvD.se/Handke). Peter Englund saw the war first hand as a reporter for Expressen and Dagens Nyheter: “To celebrate Peter Handke’s Nobel prize would be extreme hypocrisy from my side” he wrote in a mail to DN.
Others are not so categorical. “He is basically anti-fascist; there is a lot of evidence for this” said Thomas Steinfeld , a professor of theory and literary criticism. “When he avoids the use of the word genocide for anti-fascist reasons, it’s interpreted as though he’s denying it.” Steinfeld goes on to say that this is the biggest misunderstanding of Handke’s work (SvD.se/Handke). (There are reams of articles about Handke’s nomination in all sorts of languages, if interested).
Meanwhile, 2018’s prize winner, Olga Tokarczuk, will – yes – be visiting school children at a Rinkeby school during her week in Stockholm after all. The tradition has been that this particular school studies the literature of the prize winner (why it isn’t Peter Handke, see above), and then the prize winner visits the school. Earlier, Tokarczuk was not going to visit the school at all, but someone reminded her that these are children, this is what is done, and that she needed to get with the program. It was just a misunderstanding, said her translator.
Remember back in November, when Jonas Sjöstedt threatened to bring a no confidence vote to the floor to protest the government’s plan to completely reform the Swedish Public Employment Service (better known as Arbetsförmedlingen)? If you forgot, there’s a post to read about it here. And if you didn’t, well, time is almost up. If nothing happens, the vote of no confidence on Eva Nordmark, Minister for Employment, will happen on Tuesday.
When Sjöstedt, leader of the Left party, first made this threat, he was not just protesting the disassembly and privatisation of the Employment Service, but also the provision of the January Agreement that said that under no circumstances was the Left party to have any influence over government policy. The provision was stipulated by the Center and Liberal parties specifically as a requirement for their support for the formation of the Löfven government.
It’s understandable that this was part of the Left party’s anger, as the government is absolutely dependent on the Left party to stay in power (otherwise they don’t have the votes to pass their budget). Still, it was likely the government thought that they were safe because the Left party would never vote with the Sweden Democrats, and the two right block parties, to topple them…
Until today, it turned out, when the Left party became willing to do just that. Apparently, the meetings held between the Social Democrats and the Left party have not been assuaging enough. The Left party is determined to change the course of the government in respect to the current privatisation of the Employment Service.
Despite the appearance of a wrench being thrown into the disassembly work, threats being tossed about, and very serious looks on all party leader’s faces, it’s likely most of them are glad for Sjöstedt’s moves. The Unemployment Services’ quick and dirty disassembly was causing a lot of worry and problems at the municipal level: When workers are getting unemployment help they do it through the Employment Service. Without an Employment Service office nearby, the sooner the unemployed would turn to the local municipality for help – and that would be expensive, as well as more than the municipalities thought they could handle.
With the way things were going, it looked like a disaster was shaping up. Despite having previously been very much in favor of dismantling the Employment Service, the Moderate party and the Christian Democrats are now saying that they have always thought the deconstruction was going too quickly, and that’s why they are backing Sjöstedt. They are also happy when their former Alliance parties, the Center and Liberal parties, don’t get what they said they were going to get by leaving the Alliance and throwing their support behind the Social Democrats: If they can make the Center and Liberal parties look bad, the Moderate and Christian Democrats won’t be fussy about how.
Even Löfven is secretly happy because he has definitely not been a fan of this process, but was forced into moving quickly by the Center and Liberal parties and the agreement they signed back in January. The Left, Moderate, and Christian Democratic parties are actually doing him a favour if he can get out of it.
What remains to be done is for Löfven to spend the next few days finding ways to pacify the Center and Liberal party leaders and help them find ways to save face when the Unemployment Service is now not going to be disassembled as rapidly as first imagined. The Center and Liberal parties know that if the no confidence vote goes through, the government will be significantly weakened and they could find themselves on their own. A way to avoid this is most likely going to be found.
Meanwhile, Minister Eva Nordmark must be feeling a bit like a punching bag. A no confidence vote is supposed to mark no confidence in the Minister. The Left, Moderate, and Christian Democratic parties, plus the Sweden Democrats, though, are not actually protesting her, or the way she is doing her job: They’re using a no confidence vote against her to not just protest a current political course of action, but to get back at the government and its supporting parties. It’s going to be hard to see any impressed faces on the voters anytime soon.
Åkesson now allowed to join in some reindeer games pic: expressen.se
As DN’s Ewa Sandberg put it, the Moderate party leader Ulf Kristersson ripped the bandaid off, and had an official chinwag today with Jimmie Åkesson, leader of the Sweden Democrats. The taboo of speaking to Åkesson in an official capacity has officially been challenged, even more than when the Christian Democratic party leader had lunch with him. DN’s editorial board called it “wrong”, and “ill-judged”, and “unwise” – because the Sweden Democrats (SD) are “not a party like the others. It’s a movement with roots in nazism” (DN.se/bandaid).
The latest and most stodgy poll of them all, the poll done twice a year by Statistics Sweden, had the Social Democrats at their lowest level in years (for the SCB poll) at 26.3% and the Sweden Democrats at their highest, with 22.6%. The Moderate party, who has almost always been Sweden’s second most popular party and opposition leader, was, again, a decided third (DN.se/SCBpoll).
When he was first elected party leader, Kristersson said he would never speak with, negotiate or compromise with the Sweden Democrats. But that was over two years ago, when it was still possible to bully them in parliament, and not let them join in any reindeer games. SD has since only become more popular, and nearly a quarter of the population is giving them the thumbs up. For the Moderate party (still the party that knows what fork to use between them) to gain power and get its policies through parliament to make its supporters happy, it needs SD. The Moderates appear to have given up the idea of getting the previous Alliance together completely, and are throwing a feather of their hat in with the Sweden Democrats. Rubicon, crossed.
As previously noted in this blog, the Sweden Democrats have had it easy, having never had to face the music for their enacted politics because they’ve never had the chance to enact any of their policies on a national scale (just in Sölvesborg and the jury is out over there).
But even if the majority of Sweden’s voters might someday vote for SD, which isn’t likely, maybe it won’t really matter – because according to Dagens Nyheter “the majority is never definitively right, even if it calls itself “the people” (DN.se/bandaid). Some people might think a statement like that is even more scary than SD.
In October 2017, a member of the Green party posted on her Instagram account that a colleague in her party, who then sat in Parliament, had assaulted both women and children in various ways, and over a period of time. Today, in Södertorns district court, the woman was convicted of defamation, fined, ordered to pay her victim, Stefan Nilsson, 40,000 kronor, and given a suspended jail sentence (SvD.se/pedo).
The reason she did it, the woman said, was to prevent him from getting another trusted position (förtroendeuppdrag) in the party. In addition, she said that she had no intention of erasing her comment on Instagram (although the account has since been closed). The case against the man was never taken to court, and she had never asked the police to investigate.
Her crime is not just what she said, but where she said it – on a social media account. “By calling this man, Stefan Nilsson, a pedophile, the woman has labelled him both reprehensible and a criminal” wrote the court in its judgement: “Such an attribution is in no way defensible” (DN.se/pedo).
Another, similar case is in the courts right now. Cissi Wallin accused a well-known journalist, Fredrik Virtanen, of rape – also via her Instagram account. She is also being charged, by Virtanen, with defamation. In both cases, because the accusations were posted on social media, they were particularly and seriously damaging – hence being taken to court (DN.se/media). Both men lost their previous positions.
However, in neither of these cases is the truth important. At least, not to the court. In other places (like the USA and the UK) truth is an absolute defense to defamation claims. One can’t claim unfair treatment/insult/slander/libel if the statement that was made is true. In Sweden, though, that isn’t what’s at stake: It’s that you said it at all, in some public manner. As Ängla Eklund, a a lawyer with Mannheimer Swartling, explained to SVT “In Sweden, even true information can be defamation.”
