Atlantic Sentinel

Tag: Sweden

  • Political Fragmentation Isn’t the Problem

    Swedish parliament Stockholm
    Parliament House in Stockholm, Sweden (iStock/Roland Lundgren)

    Another political crisis in Europe, another chance to beat on multiparty democracy.

    It’s not like the two-party systems of America and Britain are crisis-free, yet journalists in those countries have a tendency to find complex causes for their own political problems while reducing continental Europe’s to “fragmentation”.

    Today’s example: Bloomberg, which argues the “turmoil” in Sweden “reflects a shifting political landscape” and this is a “warning to other countries with key elections looming — like Germany and France — where fractured politics have also upended old alliances.” (more…)

  • Swedish Housing Crisis Has Similarities with Netherlands

    Stockholm Sweden
    Early morning in Stockholm, Sweden (iStock/Marcus Lindstrom)

    Stefan Löfven may be Europe’s first prime minister brought down by a housing crisis, but he is unlikely to be the last.

    Löfven, a social democrat, lost the support of the far left over a proposal to allow landlords to freely set rents for newly-built apartments.

    Rents in Sweden are usually negotiated between landlords and tenants’ associations.

    Other countries struggle to find the right balance between public and private in housing too. Berlin instituted a citywide rent freeze last year, but it was struck down as unconstitutional by Germany’s highest court. Spain’s central government is challenging a Catalan rent cap. Authorities in Barcelona want to extend a moratorium on evictions that has been in place since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.

    But perhaps the best comparison is with the Netherlands, which organizes public housing in much the same way as Sweden. (more…)

  • Support for Anti-EU Parties Falls During Pandemic

    European flags Brussels
    Flags of the European Union outside the Berlaymont building in Brussels, July 22, 2016 (European Commission)

    If the coronavirus pandemic is giving Europeans doubts about the EU, it isn’t showing up in support for Euroskeptic parties. (more…)

  • Swedish Center-Right Adapts to Rise of Far Right

    Ulf Kristersson Gabrielius Landsbergis
    Swedish Moderate Party leader Ulf Kristersson listens to Gabrielius Landsbergis of the Lithuanian Homeland Union during a meeting of European conservative party leaders in Brussels, June 20 (EPP)

    Sweden’s center-right Moderates have broken ranks with other mainstream parties by holding talks with the far-right Sweden Democrats.

    The Moderates, who most recently governed Sweden from 2006 to 2014, had until now backed a cordon sanitaire around the Sweden Democrats, who are still seen as beyond by pale by centrists and leftists.

    But years of political isolation haven’t made the Sweden Democrats less popular. On the contrary. They have risen from 13 percent support in last year’s election to 25 percent in opinion polls, tying with the ruling Social Democrats and ahead of the Moderates, who are at 17-19 percent. (more…)

  • Why Sweden Still Doesn’t Have a Government

    Stefan Löfven
    Swedish prime minister Stefan Löfven leaves an EU summit in Tallinn, Estonia, September 29, 2017 (EU2017EE/Raul Mee)

    Two months after parliamentary elections, Sweden is still without a government. Neither the traditional left-wing bloc, led by outgoing prime minister Stefan Löfven’s Social Democrats, nor the center-right, led by Ulf Kristersson’s Moderate Party, has an outright majority, forcing the parties to explore other options.

    I asked our man in Sweden, Johan Wahlström, to enlighten us on the situation. (more…)

  • Ignoring Nativists Doesn’t Work in Sweden Either

    Stefan Löfven Lars Løkke Rasmussen
    Prime Ministers Stefan Löfven of Sweden and Lars Løkke Rasmussen of Denmark answer questions from reporters in Helsinki, Finland, November 1, 2017 (Finnish Government/Laura Kotila)

    The rise of the far-right Sweden Democrats proves that isolating nativists doesn’t work.

    Support for the Sweden Democrats has hovered north of 20 percent since 2015, up from the 13 percent they got in the election a year earlier. They could place second in the election this year, behind the ruling Social Democrats but ahead of the center-right Moderate Party.

    Sweden’s mainstream parties have deliberately ignored the far right and most of them share pro-immigration views, making the Sweden Democrats the only recourse for voters who feel their country — the most welcoming to refugees in Europe — has done its part.

    With 20 percent of the vote, the Sweden Democrats could block a traditional left- or right-wing government. They already forced Prime Minister Stefan Löfven into an awkward pact with the center-right in the outgoing parliament, reinforcing the impression that the entire political establishment has ganged up on the populists. (more…)

  • Social Democrats in Iberia and Scandinavia Try Opposite Strategies

    António Costa Pedro Sánchez
    Prime Minister António Costa of Portugal greets his Spanish counterpart, Pedro Sánchez, in Lisbon, July 2 (Governo da República Portuguesa/Clara Azevedo)

    What is the future of European social democracy? Your answer may depend on where you live.

    If you’re in the Mediterranean, it’s cooperation with the far left. Social democrats in Portugal and Spain have come to power under deals with far-left parties. In both cases, unwieldy coalitions were greeted with skepticism, but now Prime Ministers António Costa and Pedro Sánchez are riding high in the polls.

    In Greece, Alexis Tsipras’ Syriza party has even supplanted the center-left altogether.

    In Scandinavia, by contrast, social democrats are trying to win back working-class voters by taking a harder line on borders, crime and defense.

    Both strategies appear to be working. (more…)

  • Sweden’s Social Democrats Take Risk with Hardline Policies

    Swedish parliament Stockholm
    Parliament House in Stockholm, Sweden at night (iStock/Blue Jay Photo)

    Sweden’s Stefan Löfven is taking the fight to the far right. Politico reports that the prime minister and Social Democratic Party leader is implementing a hard line on border control, crime and defense.

    With his tough stance, Löfven hopes to avoid the fate of sister parties elsewhere in Europe who have failed to convince voters that they are still relevant now that the welfare states they helped build are well-established.

    Polls show the Swedish left down a few points. The nationalist Sweden Democrats have moved up.

    Löfven’s party would still get nearly 30 percent support on its own and 40 percent in combination with its left-wing allies; a far cry from the dismal performance of center-left parties in France, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom.

    But like social democrats elsewhere, Sweden’s are losing their traditional, working-class supporters to the far right. (more…)

  • A Tale of Two Submarines

    The news of a suspected foreign submarine in Swedish waters attracted massive media coverage last year. The Swedish Navy, a shadow of its former self after more than a decade of budget cuts, launched an intelligence-gathering operation to secure evidence of the intrusion. In November, the navy presented what it considered to be concrete proof of an intrusion by a foreign submarine. This included sonar tracks and a photograph, both of which had been subjected to detailed technical analysis and were made public.

    Last week, the Swedish Navy said that another suspected submarine sighting, in late October, had been dismissed after extensive investigation which found that the suspected vessel was in fact a “workboat.” This second observation was made a full week after the original intelligence-gathering operation concluded and was treated by Swedish defense as a separate event. (more…)

  • Swedes Ought to Reelect Reinfeldt

    John Fredrik Reinfeldt’s government in Sweden looks certain to lose an election on Sunday. That is unfortunate. His government, in office since 2006, has done much to transform the Nordic country.

    Once hamstrung by outdated economic and social policies, Sweden is now among the most competitive and dynamic countries in Europe — due in no small part to Reinfeldt’s program. (more…)