Kristersson Archives • SwedeInternational

29 feb. Refugees look to move

refugees starting walking at the Turkish border
pic: NYTimes

Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced today that he was going to open the border and allow the million-strong refugee population to leave Turkey, presumably for Europe. The 6 billion euros the European Union budgeted for paying off Turkey to not do exactly that is apparently already spent.

SvD writes that according to Doctors Without Borders, Turkey is currently harboring 3.6 million refugees, of which 365,000 come from countries other than Syria. Both Greece and Bulgaria share a border with Turkey, and there are Greek islands reachable by even a overweight and leaky rubber boat.

Minister for Justice and Migration, Morgan Johansson, seems unperturbed. In a comment, Johansson wrote that “We judge the risk for a new refugee crisis like the one in 2015 to be quite different this year. The situation in the EU and in Sweden is different. Sweden has another set of laws and it is harder for people to pass through Europe today. There are now many controls at the borders, and even in Sweden we have internal border controls that were put in place in 2015. The Swedish Migration Agency (Migrationsverket) has an expanded preparedness responsibility, and the government is in close contact with them.”

Moderate party leader Ulf Kristersson was more practical, calling for immediate aid to Bulgaria and Greece for help in strengthening their border control. “There will be big consequences if Turkey decides to renege on the (EU-Turkey) agreement” he said. “We know that Sweden and a few other countries are the most vulnerable if there isn’t a functioning border, as a lot of people come here.”

Before money is sent to Bulgaria and Greece though, a more likely scenario is sending another multi-billion cheque to Turkey for their continued help in penning in refugees. Keeping an army in Syria is expensive, after all, which is what the EU’s cheque will help fund.

13 Jan. – security in Sälen

security concerns taken up in Sälen
pic: navyskipper.blogspot.com

Way up north in the town of Sälen, northwest of Mora och near the border with Norway, the who’s who of Swedish military and defense, various ministers, party representatives, experts and a sprinkling of ambassadors are gathered at the yearly conference called Folk och Försvar, Society and Defense, to discuss issues pertinent to Sweden’s military security and defense matters. The military’s commander in chief Micael Bydén (ÖB in Swedish, överbefälhavare) spoke today, SvD reports.

“We live in a time in which global development demands both immediate alertness and long-term endurance” Bydén said in his speech. The Middle East, an aggressive Russia, China’s increasing influence, the USA’s shifting priorities, brexit, and the climate effects on conflict are some of the issues that Sweden faces. “A rule-based world order is under duress, and several traditional patterns of cooperation have been weakened or are being challenged.”

The cost of Sweden’s military forces is under continual pressure. “Sweden is in a geographically sensitive area, and with the background of a worsened security situation, Sweden’s defense must be further developed” stated Bydén – and political parties agree with him. Just how much should be spent is the crux of the matter.

At the conference yesterday, Moderate party leader Ulf Kristersson announced that for the Moderate party to sign off on the agreement between the Social Democrats, Center, Liberal and Green party last August, another 9 billion kronor is needed for the measures that were agreed upon. This would raise the military appropriation to 93 billion kronor in 2025, about 1.5% of Sweden’s gross domestic product, according to DN.

Peter Hultqvist, minister for defense, said he wasn’t completely opposed to the Moderate bid. More negotiations will take place later this year.

A new poll from DN/Ipsos shows that people’s trust in Sweden’s defenses remains low at 51%. Only 18% of respondents say that they have a lot of trust in the military’s capability to defend Sweden in case of an attack. In a related question, people were also asked whether or not Sweden should join Nato. The results shows small changes since the question was asked in 2014: The number of people saying no to Nato membership sank from 47% to 38%. However the number of people saying yes to Nato also decreased, from 35% to 30%. You guessed it, the number of people who don’t know, or are uncertain, increased from 20% to 32%.

As Micael Bydén implied, it’s an uncertain world.

15 Dec. – Löfven’s Christmas speech

Löfven holding the Christmas speech on Gotland
pic: Henrik Montgomery/TT

Prime Minister Stefan Löfven held his Christmas speech today in the ruins of the Church of St. Nicholas in Visby, on the island of Gotland. The church was part of a Dominican monastery built in the 1230s, and was burnt down in 1525 by an army from Lübeck. It is unclear why the speech was held just here, but there was at least fika and a mingle in the ruins before the speech.

Löfven spoke of how the season is representative of something bigger – of caring, and of not being indifferent to how others in society are faring. “When colleagues are chatting about how stressful it is to buy presents, others are wondering how in the world there will be money to buy even a single present to put under the tree for the kids” Löfven said. “That – sickness, loneliness, and poverty – can never be reduced to being one person’s problem. It is our collective responsibility.”

Löfven also threw in a note of thanks to the police and nurses who will be working during the holiday. “Many of us can be relatively free over the holidays, while nurses and the police continue working. They celebrate without their families so that we can be secure while celebrating with ours.”

A few pointed political comments were also thrown in, in a change from last year’s speech. Regarding the challenges forming a government after the results of the 2018 election, Löfven exclaimed that “We still succeeded in building a government led by the Social Democrats. Not least after brave decisions by the Center and Liberal parties, who chose to stand on the right side of history.”

Löfven also pointed a finger at the Moderate party leader Ulf Kristersson, SvD reports, saying that he had betrayed his promise not to cooperate with the Sweden Democrats: Kristersson only said that to keep the old Alliance parties together, Löfven claimed. It was also, Löfven expounded, “morally reprehensible” to have said to a Holocaust survivor that they would not cooperate with SD, and the turn around and do it” speaking of Kristersson’s meeting with Hédi Fried in June of 2018, and then his lunch with Jimmie Åkesson earlier this month.

Löfven also spoke the need for fast integration, and about the fight against crime. “Crime doesn’t have anything to do with the color of one’s skin or one’s religion, but with social class (samhällsklass) and a feeling of community (gemenskap).”

He also promised more money would be coming to the municipalities around Sweden. “We will not desert any municipality, any region, any part of the country. This means that we need to hold together” (SvD.se/julspeech).

9 Dec. – political Twister

strange political twists
pic: amazon.com

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?

4 Dec. – Kristersson at the Rubicon

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.

27 Nov – unavoidable poll results

It happened again – the Sweden Democrats tied for first place in the latest poll. This time it was the Dagens Nyheter/Ipsos poll, whose results came out this afternoon. In the previous poll, the Sweden Democrats (SD) and the Social Democrats were also equal at the number one spot, but the margin of error negated the certainty of results. This time’s results confirm the trend (DN.se/Poll).

For a party that all the other parties wouldn’t speak to – ignoring them like children in a playground – the Sweden Democrats have done ok. More than ok. And the irony is that they’ve done so well – arguably – because everyone else was excluding them from their games and policy making. The Sweden Democrats have gotten votes from everyone who blames immigration for Sweden’s woes, from those tired of the current parties, and from those who protest how things seem to be going in Sweden – all the while being spared from having to face voter fire and ire because they haven’t been responsible for any of it: They’ve been kept away from any formal position of power, but also from responsibility.

The changes in percentage points were small and can easily sway another way come next poll. However it appears clear that Nyamko Sabuni is not raising her Liberal party’s numbers, and that Moderate party leader Ulf Kristersson is going to have a very hard time over the next few months (weeks?) making the decision of how close to the Sweden Democrats he’s willing to get. If he’s willing to formally stand with SD, the right block composed of (theoretically speaking) the Moderates, the Christian Democrats and SD get 48% of voter support, in contrast to the 42% the consortium of Social Democrats, Center, Liberal and Green parties have together. However, these parties have the support of the Left party: However unhappy the Left is with the Social Democrats, it’s highly unlikely they’ll help to vote them out. The Left gets generally at least 8% of voter support, which tips the scale.

The problem with lumping the right block parties together is that SD isn’t really a conservative party, but instead has often actually voted with Social Democrats on policy questions. What unites them with the right block is largely opposition to the current Social Democratic and Green party government, and a promise for a tougher stance against crime. How close they really want to dance, especially at future balls, is hard to say.

As mentioned in this blog the other day, the Sweden Democrats have made a lot of platform changes, making themselves over into a party you could invite in without having to be too scared of what the neighbours might think. They are, and have been for years, much too big to ignore. 25% of the population, at last poll, is ready to come to any party where SD is included.

18 Oct. – party! (congress)

Moderate party leader Ulf Kristersson at the helm
pic: svd.se

The Moderate Party’s national congress is still going on and the suggestions thrown out there for debate include increasingly controversial crime fighting measures like visitation zones, increasingly state-reducing measures like no income taxes, a prohibition on head coverings/veils for girls in school, the abolition of public service television, and and even a stewing dissatisfaction, but one certainly not up for discussion, with the leadership of Ulf Kristersson. Congresses are for debate and are pretty refreshing in the sense that a lot of things can be said at a party congress (often from the youth wing) that can’t be said in polite company – and that don’t stand a snowflake’s chance in Florida of becoming party politics (see the Center party’s position on polygamy back in 2006).

Often, a congress is a chance to let off steam and bask in the company of other like-mindeds, but with the Sweden Democrats having taken over the position of second largest party in Sweden after the Social Democrats, the pressure is on. According to Aftonbladet, though, many Moderate party members don’t think that the Sweden Democrats are the absolute worst party in Sweden -only 12% said they agreed with that statement. One can assume that the Left party or maybe the Green party hold that honour, with the Social Democrats or even the Center party a close third.

Perhaps the most problematic for the Moderate party is the lack of enthusiasm that Kristersson garners. Even among Moderate party members only 22% would call him visionary, and only 10% of the general public would call him that. This might be the place where the Moderate party needs to roll up its sleeves and do something about changing.

1 sep. – Kristersson’s top ten list

In advance of his “summer speech,” Moderate Party leader Ulf Kristersson has sent 10 suggestions to combat crime that the Moderate Party is willing to support and cooperate on to Prime Minister, and Social Democrat party leader, Stefan Löfven. Although the text isn’t public yet, several points have leaked, including a proposal to allow court witnesses to be anonymous.

Anonymous witnesses has been a recurring debate over the past couple years, as crime has risen and the number of people willing to witness, in particular in connection with gang violence, has decreased to near zero levels. Witnesses have been threatened into staying quiet, have been assaulted, and even murdered. A change of this magnitude in the Swedish court system would be difficult to get through, but already last April the government started an investigation into seeing if it would be possible under Swedish constitutional law: There are many that believe it isn’t. One country that Sweden could look at as an example is Norway, where anonymous witnesses are allowed.

SvD reports that Kristersson’s list also contains a suggestion for making it easy, and legal, for police to carry out body searches, in certain zones only, if the person is suspected, for example, of carrying an illegal weapon. No concrete suspicion must be presented for a body search to take place. The suggestion list is also said to include lowering the threshold for requiring the police to take someone into custody, and doubling the sentence of any gang member that is convicted of committing a crime. According to Kristersson, the increase in violent crime is something that requires just a broad mobilisation, and presumably some stiff law-making.

So far there has been no answer from Löfven, which is natural since perhaps it isn’t considered so seemly for the Prime Minister to jump when Kristersson says so. Kristersson says he expects an answer though: “Either he’s ready to make changes and lead the country out of this crisis, or he’s not.” “In the end,” Kristersson finished, “you have to lead the country or leave the job.”