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SWEDEN DEMOCRATS

Sweden’s far-right votes with the government: study

The far-right Sweden Democrats vote with the government nine out of ten times.

That is what a news agency TT study shows of all 289 votes that the Sweden Democrats have been a part of over the past six months.

It makes news every time the Sweden Democrats together with other opposition parties cut down the center-right government’s proposals or help push through a red-green proposal. And the most important questions the Sweden Democrats have impacted have been stopping the sale of state-owned companies and cost-savings on government offices.

But it is the government that benefits from the Sweden Democrats’ kingmaker role in the Riksdag. During the six months since the election, the Sweden Democrats have supported the government in nine out of ten cases.

“The most important thing the Sweden Democrats have done in their roll as kingmaker is to support the government’s budget, which means the Alliance can continue to take peoples’ safety nets away,” Sven-Rik Österberg, team leader for the Social Democrats, told newspaper Aftonbladet.

But Anna Kinberg Batra, team leader for the Moderate party, disagreed. “Those we rely on within the Alliance are each other, no others,” she said to Aftonbladet.

According to the Swedish constitution a minority government can pass the budget as long as the opposition is unable to unite on an alternative proposal.

The Alliance government is thus not dependent on the support of any other party to enable its budget to pass.

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POLITICS

Sweden Democrat leader calls for ‘reevaluation’ of Swedish EU membership

The leader of the Sweden Democrats reawakened the spectre of Swexit – Sweden leaving the European Union – on Tuesday penning a debate article which called for a reevaluation of membership.

Sweden Democrat leader calls for 'reevaluation' of Swedish EU membership

“With ever increasing instances of far-reaching gesture politics, EU membership is starting to become dangerous like a straitjacket which we have no choice but to simply accept and adapt to,” Åkesson wrote in an opinion piece in the Aftonbladet newspaper

“This means that German, Polish or French politicians can in practice decide over which car you are going to be allowed to buy, how expensive your petrol should be, or which tree you should be allowed to cut down on your own land.” 

As a result, he said there are “good reasons to properly reevaluate our membership of the union”.  

In the run-up to the UK’s Brexit referendum in 2016, the Sweden Democrats called frequently for Sweden to follow the British example and hold a renegotiation of its relationship with the EU followed by an in-out referendum. 

But in 2019, as the UK struggled to negotiate a satisfactory departure agreement, Åkesson changed his position saying that he now hoped to change the European Union from within

In his article on Tuesday, Åkesson said that power was continually being ceded from Sweden to Brussels. 

“The more that happens, the more the will of the people as reflected in parliamentary results is going to be less and less relevant,” her said. “Our Swedish elections are going to soon become irrelevant to Sweden’s development, and of course, we can’t let that happen.”

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