Wallström Archives • SwedeInternational

10 sep. – new appointments

Two new ministers, an ex-minister gets the EU’s migration portfolio and and an ex-party leader goes back into uniform. Where to start?

When Margot Wallström said buh-bye to the Foreign Minister job there weren’t really a lot of candidates to replace her. It had to be a woman, so that narrowed it right down too. Today, we got the formal word that the new Minister for Foreign Affairs will be Ann Linde, previously Minister for Foreign Trade, with responsibility for Nordic affairs.

This is not particularly surprising, and she’ll likely continue with a feminist foreign policy (but without the fanfare). However, her appointment is far from unquestioned: Linde showed incredibly poor judgement when she heard about the data leaks at the Swedish Transport Agency (Transportstyrelsen) – and didn’t do anything. Let’s hope she’s learned something, or Sweden’s security is in shaky hands. A minor, but likely painful, problem will be all the coming meetings with foreign representatives who will no doubt think, however briefly, of Anna Lindh, the well known and popular Foreign Minister who met a tragic end in 2003.

The new Minister for Employment, Eva Nordmark, will also have to fill large shoes. Nordmark comes from TCO, The Swedish Confederation of Professional Employees where she has been chair. TCO is an umbrella organization for 13 different white-collar unions and as far as anyone knows, is skeleton free. The Ministry for Employment is responsible for “the labour market, the work environment, gender equality, human rights at national level, children’s rights and the introduction of newly arrived immigrants,” so not so piddly.

Meanwhile, the previous Minister for Employment, Ylva Johansson, is in Brussels and looks to be getting the dubious honor, but important position, of heading up EU’s Home Affairs office. The EU commission is the executive branch of the EU, proposing legislation and implementing decisions (nod here to Wikipedia) – at Home Affairs, Johansson will be working on easy stuff like migration issues and security. EU commissioner von der Leyen described Johansson as “hands-on. If you want something to be done, ask her”(t.sr.se/SRJohansson).

There’s going to be a lot of asks, as there is a lot that people want done. Or not. Some people want their own migration policy and not EU deciding it for them. Getting 28 countries to agree on a migration policy is, well, as the Chinese have it “when the sun rises in the west.”

Finally, Major Jan Björklund is back on the job. This time, not as Liberal Party leader but as acting operations leader in Middle Military Region’s command staff (). Though he couldn’t introduce discipline in schools, it seems like he’s giving it another try in the trenches.

8 sep. – Wallström’s report card

Sweden’s getting a new minister for foreign affairs. We don’t know who, yet (maybe we’ll know Tuesday with the government declaration – regeringsförklaring), but let’s do a quick evaluation of the last five years of Swedish foreign policy under Wallström.

Margot Wallström will likely be remembered especially for three things: a feminist foreign policy, not signing the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, and recognizing the state of Palestine. The first, perhaps, will have the most long-lasting impact.

There’s no absolute definition of a feminist foreign policy. It’s new! But we can say, without, hopefully, being way off in the bushes, that a feminist foreign policy proposes that gender equality is both a goal as well as something that is necessary to reach other goals. That means, among other things, that peace is not truly achieved and/or lasting unless women receive equal standing at the negotiating table, that trade agreements need to address women’s industry, that war and civil unrest unequally target women (and other societal segments like the elderly and the young, whose voices are traditionally ignored).

Since Wallström’s original invite, other countries have arrived at the party too. Canada has a Feminist International Assistance Policy (thanks Justin), and France’s foreign policy has been locally dubbed a feminist one, specifying gender-related priorities as a “principle and cross-cutting theme” ( https://www.icrw.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Defining-Feminist-Foreign-Policy-Brief-revised.pdf).

We know, though, that Sweden simultaneously also completed arms transactions with Saudi Arabia, fulfilling previously signed contracts, keeping Sweden in the remunerative, hi-tech arms game, and saying nada/nothing/zero/what? about the status of women in the kingdom. For some this was a betrayal of a feminist foreign policy, and for others it was a bow to realism.

Not signing the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons was definitely a bow to realism. There was simply no one, except for a sliver of hopefuls, that thought this would be helpful to Sweden, or be productive in attaining world peace. Wallström was thrown a bone in the form of a possible, future, observer status, which was made the most of by an understanding press.

Something that was not particularly popular with the press, or with almost anyone else outside of Sweden, was unilaterally recognizing the state of Palestine. Wallström no doubt intended it to in some way jump start, or shock, negotiations, but didn’t look around and notice that no one else was on the train, particularly our own EU partners. There has not been an slew of copycat recognitions, so it’s been slightly embarrassing and the effect has been minimal.

Not that it’s easy to make a mark. Wallström’s feminist foreign policy is perhaps her best legacy – a vision. An idea of a new path. It’s not that bad for five years.

Wed. 24/7 – Sweden in straits

scenes we don’t want to see
pic: newyorker.com

The Swedish shipping company Stena Bulk finally got in touch with the crew of its ship, Stena Impero, which was taken over by Iran in the Strait of Hormuz last week. The 23-man crew, who are of Indian, Russian, Latvian and Filipino origin, report that they are in good physical health, though under a lot of psychological stress.

The Swedish government may also be under a certain amount of stress as pressure grows for them to take a stand as to whether or not they will partake in a collaborative security effort in the Strait of Hormuz, helping to guarantee the safe transit of ships through one of the busiest and most economically important seaways in the world.

Jeremy Hunt, the UK’s Foreign Minister, has floated the idea of a common European (not NATO) defense of the seaway, to which Denmark, France, Italy and the Netherlands have responded positively. Here, the Minister for Foreign Affairs Margot Wallström’s spokesperson says Sweden hasn’t been formally asked to participate. By this, they are able to avoid committing to a yes, or a no. It doesn’t help the UK’s case that they are essentially asking for help in defending the unharrassed passage of oil tankers. Oil tankers don’t exactly have a lot of likes in Sweden. As the Swedish government is a coalition that includes the Swedish Green Party, it likely doesn’t jibe well.

The larger issue is of course to what degree Sweden is willing to stand up in some sort of military cooperation with its neighbours. Just recently, Sweden signed an agreement to look into the posiblility of developing fighter jets together with Great Britain (). But, in case you didn’t get it the first time, it was an agreement just to look into the possibility of working together. Aligning itself militarily with one part or another isn’t something Sweden does easily.

Everyone knows Peter Hultqvist, Minister for Defense, and Margot Wallström don’t row the same boat, and this recent non-request by the UK falls under the purview of the Foreign Ministry when it comes to a dialog.

13 July – Sweden just said no

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.