President Trump and Sweden’s Prime Minister Stefan Löfven had a 20 minute chat this afternoon during which Löfven explained to Trump that the Swedish courts were untouchable for both himself, US Presidents, and anyone else unconnected to the justice system. The chat, characterised as “friendly and respectful” by Löfven, and “a very good call” by Trump, didn’t change anything regarding the continued detention (now until July 25) of hip hop star ASAP Rocky.
Trump offered to cover the bail for Rocky, but bail is not the issue since it doesn’t figure in the Swedish justice system anyway: No one is supposed to be able to use money to buy themselves into an nicer situation.
A record number of Swedes have died drug-related deaths, SvD reports. Fresh statistics for the year 2017 from the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction show that the only country with a higher number of deaths per million people was Estonia. If its any comfort – which it isn’t – Estonia’s numbers (130 deaths per million) were way higher than Sweden’s (92 deaths per million).
The official Swedish policy towards drugs is one of zero-tolerance. In recent years, this policy has come under a lot of critique from people in the know who say that Sweden basically wages war on drug users instead of trying to treat them. Testing for drug use also uses up huge amounts of law enforcement’s time and resources, and there have been charges that the police spend more time tracking down drug use in the suburbs that have a large immigrant population than in their socioeconomic opposite numbers. There are many voices that call for more regulation in drug use, and less all-out criminalization.
Allowing more access to Naloxin, the anti-overdose miracle medicine, is, however, about the only new thing the government has considered in recent years. Legalising cannabis, that even Sweden’s soul mate Canada has recently done, is so far pretty much out of the question.
There is no question that something is definitely rotten in the state of Sweden , as drug-related deaths have doubled in the last ten years.
Ursula von der Leyen, the leading candidate for the presidency of the EU commission job, outlined her plan for the EU during her reign.
Er, command.
No, her presidency…
” We want multilateralism, we want fair trade, we defend the rules-based order because we know it is better for all of us. We have to do it the European way. But if we are to go down the European path, we must first rediscover our unity. If we are united on the inside, nobody will divide us from the outside. ” ( http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_SPEECH-19-4230_en.htm)
von der Leyen also stated she wants to reduce CO2 emissions by at least 50% by 2030, and that this was something that the EU countries needed to do together. She will also be putting forward a “green deal for Europe” within her first 100 days.
Other key phrases were “Sustainable Europe Investment Bank,” “Climate Bank,” “Carbon Border Tax,” and “Just Transition Fund.” Also mentioned were “Stability and Growth Pact, fair taxes, minimum wages, Youth Guarantee, Child Guarantee, “full gender equality in my College of Commissioners” and and a wish to “add violence against women on the list of EU crimes defined in the Treaty.”
Really, you should read her speech.
The vote on her presidency is due to take place at 4pm Swedish time today. There are no other real candidates, but in order to have solid legitimacy she needs to win over more than a token amount of votes from the Social Democrats, who would rather have had Frans Timmermans. She might not be a complete shoo-in, but her not winning would indicate a serious revolt on the part of the EU Parliament, who wants to have the major say in who gets the job. When the EU commission instead decided to back their own candidate, von der Leyen, there were many aggrieved and angry faces.
Still, we can pretty much expect to say European Commission President von der Leyen soon.
SvD reports today that the latest figures from the Swedish Public Employment Service (Arbetsförmedlingen) show that 337,000 people in Sweden (6.7%) are unemployed. The news is that there’s been an increase in unemployed women, and a decrease in unemployed men – making unemployment just now equal between the sexes.
The Swedish Court of Appeals (hovrätt) sentenced a man to jail for eight months after he was found guilty of negligent rape (“oaktsamt våldtäkt”), DN.se reports. The court ruled that the man was aware that the woman was likely a victim of human trafficking and was therefore not a willing partner: After an encounter with the woman, the man reportedly wrote on his facebook page “Trafficking suspected. Not recommended.”
While the man pled guilty to buying sex and to degrading photography (“kränkande fotografering”) he appealed the rape charge. The Swedish court upheld the previous court’s judgement but reduced the sentence from one year to eight months. The reduced sentence was likely due to following the punishment precedent set by the Swedish Supreme Court in another negligent rape case only several months ago.
On the 1st of July, 2108, the law changed to make sex illegal unless it is mutually, expressly and/or obviously consensual. TT reports that to be convicted of rape alone, the perpetrator must have acted intentionally. If the perpetrator was “merely” grossly negligent in ascertaining the victim’s willingness they can be found guilty of “negligent rape”.
It is thanks to new immigrants and babies that Stockholm is still a growing city – otherwise, SvD writes, there are more people moving out of the city than in. For the last few years, suburban areas that have gained in population thanks to people in Stockholm who decide they want more space / a garden / open windows and, if you’re Swedish-born, kids. The price of apartments in Stockholm, as well as the new mortgage requirements are additional reasons for moving out.
Does this mean an end to Stockholm city? Hardly. There just isn’t much room to grow, one researcher says: there is a limit to how tight you can build buildings, and Stockholm’s islands can’t get bigger. Manhattan builds upwards though, so maybe that will be the next step here too.
After two years of both open and behind closed doors debate, Sweden will not – repeat, not – be signing the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. Somewhere around 20 countries have signed it, and Sweden was considered by many to be a sure thing, in particular because Sweden’s Minister for Foreign Affairs Margot Wallström leaned heavily in that direction.
However, there were plenty of people who thought the whole idea was not only quixotic, but even damaging: the Treaty would have thrown into question and very possibly undermined the landmark and arguably effective NPT, Treaty on the Non Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, from 1970. (The NPT is not only a binding arms limitation treaty but it has a whopping 191 signatories: It’s not something you want to undermine.)
Since there were two divergent opinions on the usefulness of the new prohibition treaty (one cynical and one hopeful? One idiotic and one helpful? One hopeless and one realistic? opinions vary), Sweden (per usual) assigned an special investigator to do a deep dive on the issue for Sweden. He came out against signing. Also the USA and other Nato countries pressed hard for Sweden not to sign, arguing it would seriously hurt Sweden’s standing in international contexts.
Although Wallström has now said no, Sweden won’t sign, in typical Swedish fashion she isn’t committing to not signing in the future, if the treaty becomes more feasable/popular. At the same time as she said “not now (though I really really, really wanted to)” Wallström signed Sweden up for being a treaty “observer” who would help develop the treaty and monitor it being followed. The catch here is that at least 50 countries need to have signed it for Sweden to take this watchdog role, and that doesn’t seem to be happening for the moment.
A previous American ambassador to Sweden, Mark Brzezinski, has written to the King, the Swedish Minister of Foreign Affairs Margot Wallström, and Sweden’s ambassador to the United States Karin Olofsdotter regarding the detention of hiphop star ASAP Rocky (dn.se). Brzezinski believes Sweden’s treatment of Rocky reflects extremely negatively on Sweden, particularly when the motivation behind the incident appears to be race-related. (Videos of the incident are all over the net.)
The incident took place near Hötorget in Stockholm on the 30th of June, DN.se reports. Two days later Rocky ASAP voluntarily came in to the police to answer questions. On June 3rd, a detention order was sent in by the prosecutor’s office and on the 5th he was detained on suspicion of assault (sannolika skäl misstänkta för misshandel av normalgraden). Two others are also detained, and all three proclaim their innocence. They can be detained until July 19th, or even longer if the court so decides.
By the way, apparently only the Royal family got back to Brzezinski – but what they said, he’s not saying.
Now that suddenly Ursala von der Leyen (a German politician from the Christian Democratic Union party) is the leading candidate for presidency of the EU commission, the fight is on for the position of first vice-president. On-site for the Center party, Frederick Federley is pushing for the Liberal candidacy of Danish Margrethe Vestager, while the Social Democrats in Brussels are working hard for their candidate, Dutchman Frans Timmermans. Swedish radio (sr.se) reports that Helene Fritzon, the top Social Democrat from Sweden, believes Sweden extracted a promise from von der Leyen that Timmermans would get it, but since the meeting was behind closed doors and there’s nothing on paper, who knows.
Both of these candidates were leading in the race for the presidency but were knocked out by the sudden appearance of von der Leyen, a compromise candidate that everyone thought they could get behind. Now, the fight is just as bad for the second-in-command position.
In typical diplomatic fashion, the solution might be to name the one “first vice-president,” and the other just “vice-president.” But a compromise like that might just compromise the position even more. Does anyone even know who the current vice-president is? No, not actually.
SvD writes that the Swedish Prison and Probation Service (Kriminalvården) has sent in a request to the government to change the law in order to be able to make Swedish prisons smoke-free. No smoking for either prisoners/clients or for employees. This is actually already the case in Great Britain, Iceland as well as in several states in the US, but KRIS, a nationwide support group for those who have served time, are concerned that life will now only become even harder for inmates.
