Moderaterna Archives • SwedeInternational

15 Jan. – unemployment getting higher

the wrong numbers are going up
pic: svt.se

Fewer jobs, more people looking for jobs, and more people losing their jobs, DN writes, summing up the reasons why the unemployment rate in Sweden is rising again. The unemployment rate is now at 7.2%, higher than it’s been in two years, and it’s across the board – young people, Swedish-born, foreign-born, women and men.

On the other hand, however, the Swedish Public Employment Office (Arbetsförmedling) writes, there are still a lot of jobs out there – if you’re willing to “broaden your profession” and/or move. Annika Sundén, chief analyst at the Employment Office, writes that the job market has been very strong the last few years, and is now coming down from a high. Suzanne Spector, senior analyst at Nordea, SvD writes, is in agreement, saying that jobs are still being found – just there are more looking for them, and it takes more time.

The Swedish Trade Union Organization, however (Landsorganisation, LO), is criticising the government for acting too slowly, for one thing. It also criticises the Moderate and Christian Democratic parties for the budget they pushed through after the 2018 election, plus the government for the January Agreement and going along with the demands from the Center and Liberal parties to reform the Employment Office (reforms that were later cancelled under threat, see this post, this post and this post).

Another critique that LO directs towards the government is for cancelling the “extra service” jobs (extratjänster) that were doled out by the Employment Office. Extratjänster jobs were jobs in social services like health care and elder care which were heavily subsidized by the government. They were created to help people who are otherwise “a long way from the job market” (långtidsarbetslösa) to get into, or back into, the job market. The program was severely panned since permanent jobs were seldom offered to the persons after their subsidized employment was over. The jobs did raise the employment numbers, and kept some people in jobs, so the measure can (in some ways) be put down as a success, but many thought it was an expensive program that was merely obfuscating the real employment numbers.

Lars Jagrán, SvD reports, analyst at the Confederation of Swedish Enterprise (better known as Svenskt Näringsliv), remarked that the higher unemployment was expected, but was sorry nonetheless. “Those that haven’t gotten work during the good economy are going to have a harder time now, which will make integration even more difficult. ”

The Social Democrats don’t seem so worried about the numbers. Minister for Employment, Eva Nordmark, also said the higher numbers were expected and that counter measures have been put in place: 1.3 billion kronor has been earmarked for a jobs package, 900 million kronor is set to strengthen the Employment Office, and five million has been directed to the municipalities to help strengthen their economy.

“As the Minister for Employment, I feel proud that the government is meeting the situation that we see around us – we’re not at a loss, saying “goodness, oh dear” Nordmark said (oj, hoppsan). “We know what’s going on, our finances are good and we have been able to pull our efforts together now when we see a downturn on the way.”

It is precisely that Sweden’s economy is, and has been, so strong that the Left party is pushing to use that money – and to borrow more – to send out to the municipalities. The Moderate party has also just gone on record saying that more money has to be sent to the municipalities to prevent the reduction in services in the health, school, and elder care sectors: They may even in the near future join forces (as they did in regards to the Employment Office reform) to threaten the government into sending more funds to the local governments. The difference in their approaches is that the Left party wants the government to take the required monies out of savings, while the Moderate party would rather keep the savings and take it out of the foreign welfare budget.

Way back in 2014, the Social Democratic party went into the election with a promise that Sweden would have the lowest unemployment in Europe in 2020. Not going to happen. But it wasn’t a smart thing to promise in the first place.

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.

21 Nov. – another no confidence motion in the works

Sjöstedt has no confidence
pic: Jessica Gow/TT

Jonas Sjöstedt, leader of the Left Party, has threatened to set a no confidence vote into motion against Minister for Employment Eva Nordmark (read about no confidence votes here). Sjöstedt has made five demands, of which the first one is the big one:

the government stops the privatisation of the Swedish Public Employment Service, aka Arbetsförmedlingen,
the government allocates extra funds to stabilize the Employment Service’s ongoing work,
the government creates an economically detailed and timely plan for stopping the closing of Employment Service offices, and ensures a continued presence across the country creates a plan and make the necessary decisions in the law or in regulations to maintain and develop the Employment Service’s special competencies regarding special needs and support for the disabled,
the government states that any reform of the Employment Services will first be fully investigated in all relevant aspects, including cost estimates and transition procedures, before any part of the Employment Service is changed. An important part of this investigation is how municipalities’ responsibilities and economic situation is affected.

Reforming the Employment Service was a condition set by the Center Party to not vote down the Social Democrats in their bid to remain in power after the last election. Together with the Liberal party, the Center party and the two government parties agreed to a 73 point plan (also known as the January Agreement) that was filled with demands, including a total change in how the Employment Service was set up.

Many of the changes were anathema to Social Democratic voters, let alone Left party voters. The point that likely most sticks in the Left party’s craw is where it says ““This agreement means that the Left Party will not have influence over the political direction in Sweden during the coming term of office” (socialdemocraterna.se).

Sjöstedt is now considering calling the government’s bluff. Only together with the Left party does the government, together with the support from the Center and Liberal parties guaranteed by the government fulfilling the 73-point agreement, have the votes to pass legislation. Up until now, and even with the clause that was created to shut them out, the Left party has not withdrawn their support for the government: The alternative was clearly worse for them.

However, it seems that the Left party’s acquiescence is over, and that they’re even willing to accept support for their no-confidence motion from political opponents. The Sweden Democrats are already 100% behind the Left party’s idea, and even the Moderate Party is considering it. “We want to unseat all this government’s ministers, so it’s very likely that we’ll go along with a vote of no confidence” remarked Jimmie Åkesson, leader of the Sweden Democrats. Although reforming the Employment Service has been part of their platform for a long time, the Moderate party has problems with how it’s been implemented. Group leader for the Moderate party in Parliament, Tobias Billström, commented that although the Left and Moderate parties have very different ideas on how the Service should be run, the current plans for reforming it are “poorly thought out and badly instituted” and lack parliamentary support, to boot (SvD.se/Nordmark).

The question is what the government can do to appease the Left party, while not alienating the Center party. Also the Liberal party is left in a crunch situation: they went along with supporting a Social Democratic government largely to keep the Sweden Democrats isolated,and only as long as the January Agreement was upheld by all sides. If the government downshifts on its commitment to the agreement, the Liberals will be left hanging, and this when they are only just barely above the 4% threshold.

Sjöstedt has said that the government has two weeks to respond before he makes a no confidence motion.

11 Nov. – a name, a vote, and a meeting

can this wave be stopped?
pic: watersource.awa.asn.au

In the wake of the shooting and the explosion over the weekend, that the police now suspect are connected, there are several actions in the works: the police have labelled their response an “extraordinary operation” (särskilt händelse), the Moderate party has said they are behind the Sweden Democrats’ decision to call a vote of no confidence in Minister for Justice Morgan Johansson, and the Malmö police are organizing a special conference, with the local criminals.

Only the terrorist attack on the pedestrians on Drottninggatan in April of 2017, and the forest fires in the summer of 2018, have previously been classified as “extraordinary operations” by the police department. The current operation is being called Operation Rimfrost (hoarfrost in English), and allows the police department to make the decision-making process faster and increases their authority to reprioritize and move police forces around. “The number of persons in criminal networks shall be reduced by force” said Stefan Hector, chief of operations for NOA, the national operations division, “by which we mean arrests, charges and sentencing.” The police hope to seize more weapons and explosives as well. “In about 6 months we will have seen a difference” Hector predicted (SvD.se/rimfrost).

In related news, the Sweden Democrats have said they will be bringing a motion of no confidence in Minister for Justice Johansson to the floor at the party leader debate on Wednesday – and the Moderate party has said they will support it. Jimmie Åkesson, leader of the Sweden Democrats, declared that it was “obvious that the Minister for Justice, who in this case has the ultimate responsibility to handle this situation, does not understand its seriousness. He can’t handle it, and therefore parliament should in some way make clear its dissatisfaction with the work that is unfortunately not happening” (SR.se/Åkesson).

Moderate party leader Ulf Kristersson echoed his colleague. “It is right to direct a vote of no confidence in the Minister for Justice. For the last five years, he has been ultimately responsible for the situation we’ve arrived at in Sweden. It’s untenable. Either the minister does his job or he takes the consequences and resigns. We will be voting no confidence” (SR.se/Åkesson).

For a vote of no confidence to go through, at least 35 parliament members need to demand it. If a majority in parliament (175 members) vote yes, the minister in question must resign. So far, in Swedish history, there have only been nine – count ’em, nine – votes of no confidence. None of them has ever resulted in a minister’s resignation.

As far the other more right parties go, the Liberals have said they will not support a vote of no confidence, but that the government must “take vigorous measures against gangs.” The Christian Democrats haven’t yet commented. It is unlikely in the extreme that the more left Green or Center party will support it, altogether making the resignation of Johansson equally unlikely. The Moderate party’s youth wing, MuF, went its mother party one better and demanded a vote of no confidence in not just the Minister of Justice Johansson, but also on Minister for Home Affairs Mikael Damberg (DN.se/MuF). That one won’t be going anywhere, for the moment at least.

Meanwhile, the local police in Malmö have called a meeting for Tuesday. With the local criminals. The criminals that come don’t have to be the most violent ones, or the leaders – as long as they have legitimacy and that the others “listen when they talk” said Glen Sjögren, coordinator the “Stop Shooting” project (read more about the project here).

“We’re giving them a message – that we don’t want them to die and we don’t want them to kill someone. If they, or someone in their group, commit a crime involving lethal violence or explosives we’re going to focus on their whole group. If they want to leave their criminal life behind them, we’re ready to help them with that too” said Sjögren. “The goal is to stop the current crime wave and to prevent an escalation” (DN.se/slutaskjuta).

It seems like it’s all hands on deck, but whether or not talking leads to actions and then to an effect is anyone’s guess.

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.

14 Oct. – Löfven reported – again

the hot seat of a KU committee interview
pic: axisimagingnews.com

Moderate party leader Ulf Kristersson has reported Prime Mininster Stefan Löfven to the Committee on Constitutional Affairs (konstitutionsutskottet). When Stefan Löfven said in an interview the other day that Sweden needed to take in fewer refugees, coalition partner the Green Party hit the roof: Taking in fewer refugees is not their party line at all, so how could Löfven have said that? Löfven responded that he was only speaking as party leader of the Social Democrats at that particular moment.

“But who would know that?” is the Moderate party question. As Prime Minister, Löfven speaks for the government. In all that he says, goes the the thought, one “should be able to count on that the statements coming from the Prime Minister are correct” (fplus.se). To Expressen, migration policy spokesperson Maria Malmer Stenergard from the Moderate party said that she would not have reported it if she hadn’t believed that a wrong had been committed (fplus.se).

A report to the Committee on Constitutional Affairs sounds serious, perhaps, and it should be, but it’s not, really. The committee is made up of 17 parliament representatives from all the parties, supported by an small office of civil servants. Their job is to review the performance of government ministries and the handling of government affairs. (They also go through documents from the various government offices to make sure that laws and praxes were followed in all cases.)

When someone is reported, they interview the person. These interviews are public, so they can be awkward. Most of the time, that’s the point. However, if a charge is leveled then it goes directly to the Swedish supreme court. This has happened exactly once since the mid 1800’s. Generally, someone gets mildly slapped on the wrist and told not to do whatever it was again, but in a next-to-worst-case, a committee report can be used as the basis for a non-confidence vote.

According to Expressen, Stefan Löfven was reported to the committee (KU-anmäld) 27 times before he’d even completed a full term of office (Expressen.se/KULöfven). Most of the reporting has been leveled at him from the Moderate party, naturally enough. But every party except the Green Party has reported him at least once. In his ten years of office, ex-Prime Minister Göran Persson was reported “only” 26 times, so we’re talking about a huge increase in reporting especially in the last few years.

This has, of course, watered down the seriousness of being reported significantly, and seems now mostly just a show for public consumption – well, what’s more likely is that it’s a show for privately disgruntled and frustrated opposition party members. The public, at this point, is mostly just rolling their eyes.

24 sep. – Moderate party still moderately popular

The latest shows that the Moderate party is back at the level it was last October, before the alliance fell apart. The recent numbers show them having a 19% support rating, here tied with the Sweden Democrats (only about a week ago, another poll showed the Sweden Democrats at 20.2% – but that was then). The Social Democrats came in at 26%, and the Center and Left parties tied for a distant 3rd at 9% each. In last place, tied at 5%, are the Liberal and Green parties. The question asked was, “if the election was today, who would you vote for?”.

This seems to be the new normal. 26% is pretty much a new low for the Social Democrats, but they’re still the party most people are going to. Analysts at DN/Ipsos remark that SD, M and KD (at 7%) are gaining and losing voters mostly to each other, and Sabuni’s non-lift for the Liberal party is becoming only clearer. The Moderate party’s 19% is up, but only from a pretty low level previously.

If anyone was looking for a bump, or a dip, from the right’s trip to Tel Aviv, the non-agreement on fighting gang violence, the bank tax, gas tax or tax rebate for pensioners, the free year, Sölvesborg, Shekarabi’s facebook comments – or basically any effect from the myriad of issues over the last few weeks, is going to be pretty disappointed.

21 sep. – talks fail over gang-related crime

Discussions between all of Sweden’s political parties – except SD, as discussed in this blog post – on measures to combat rising gang violence has been a hot topic. It’s been weeks. It’s been a couple meetings. And it’s all just ended with the Moderate, Liberal and Christian Democratic parties leaving the deliberations in frustration.

Johan Forssell of the Moderate party has been vocal about his impatience with the process for a while now. On Friday, he said that the government had until Saturday to get its proposal together. Today is Saturday, and the Moderate, Liberal and Christian Democratic parties have now walked because the government’s proposal did not include some of the reforms that they wanted. These included increasing the number of police working on combating gang violence, doubling the sentence for gang-related crimes, getting rid of the youth rebate for offenders under 21 (straffrabatt för unga) and scrapping the “multi-crime discount” (mängdrabatt).

Just as an aside, the multi-crime discount is a particularly interesting Swedish sentencing praxis in which the more criminal offenses committed, the less time is served for the crimes after the first one. For example, say you have committed three crimes of similar severity. You are given the full sentence for the first crime, and the time you serve for the other crimes is reduced. This means that if all three crimes would normally get two years jail time, you would serve two years for the first crime, less than two years for the second crime and even less again for the third crime. If you are of the criminal bent, you definitely want to plan your crimes so that they all come up in court at once.

At some point in history this might have made sense. It’s hard to say. But at this point in history, the Moderate party and several others are saying it’s not making sense anymore.

The government, meanwhile, is going ahead with its own list of measures, being, one must assume, the more low-hanging fruit that everyone agreed on. This list includes things like getting rid of the youth rebate after repeated criminality, giving the police more leeway for reading encrypted communications, increased sentences for conveying narcotics, and increased sentences for gang-on-gang crimes. I’m not making this up. You can read about it in SvD here.

Further, the government has plans to make it easier for the police to get a search warrant for gang-related premises, and to create a national program to help people who want to get out of being in a gang.

It’s possible the Moderate party’s Johan Forssell painted himself into a corner with his ultimatum, and then had to follow up with leaving the negotiations. It wouldn’t have been a big deal to sign off on what they could agree on, and then go on to say that he would have liked a heck of a lot more but that the other parties said no. That would have forced the other parties to explain their no’s, rather than Forsell looking a just a tiny bit pouty. The Center Party chose to stay (just another example of the ever widening split in the former alliance) and looks either soft on the Social Democrats, or smart. Or both.

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.”