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Borg and Batra climb up list of powerful Swedes

Unlike Samson, Finance Minister Anders Borg seems not to have been deprived of his powers after chopping off that signature ponytail, as he sprinted past the prime minister in an annual ranking of Sweden's most powerful people.

Published: 22 November 2013 12:50 CET
Borg and Batra climb up list of powerful Swedes
Anna Kinberg Batra and Anders Borg of the Moderate Party both landed in the top ten. File photo montage: TT/The Local

While Borg was quick to underscore that ruling the country was a "team effort", Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt had to make do with second place on the list, published on Friday by Fokus Magazine.

Fokus political editor Torbjörn Nilsson explained Borg's rise was related to the fact that all actual power had been moved over to the finance ministry,  

"Number two on the list lets this politician, who's never put his name forward in any internal election, do what he wants. Power in Sweden 2013 belongs to this newly short-haired man," the editors commented in the official list.

Social Democrat leader Stefan Löfven maintained his hold on the number three spot, while Riksbank head Stefan Ingves jumped to fourth place, up from the tenth spot last year.

Jimmie Åkesson, head of the anti-immigration, far-right Sweden Democrats climbed to spot number five, up from 19th place in the 2012 ranking.

Anna Kinberg Batra of the Moderate Party also saw her star rise in the Fokus list, jumping from 15th to tenth place, the only other woman in the top ten besides Social Democrat financial policy spokeswoman Magdelena Andersson, who landed in ninth.

Fokus editors underlined that Kinberg Batra is a more likely successor to the leadership of the Moderate Party, and thus the bid for the prime minister post in the future, than Borg. 

With two women on the list, 2013 represented a 100 percent increase in females in the top-ten compared to last year.

READ ALSO: One woman makes Sweden's power top ten

"Power is still a very sensitive topic. Everybody wants it, nobody wants to talk about it," Fokus editor-in-chief Martin Ahlquist wrote in an editorial that underlined two trends in this year's list. That many Sweden Democrats were advancing in the ranking and that the boundary between politicians and businesspeople was becoming increasingly blurred, a trend which The Local has reported on previously. 

Ahlquist also pointed to the overwhelming whiteness of the list. 

"It is striking to what extent our powerbrokers, regardless of what part of society they represent, are to a large extent light skinned," he wrote. 

The first page of the Fokus spread, stretching all the way down to an oddly sun-burnt pic of former PM Göran Persson at spot 22, features people with Western European backgrounds. 

Exceptions on the list included Social Democrat rising star Ardalan Shekarabi in 68th place and author Jonas Hassen Khemiri at number 95, although there are a number of other people on the list who may have family ancestry outside Sweden such as like Dagens Nyheter (DN) managing editor Peter Wolodarski, whose parents came to Sweden from Poland in the 1960s.

Fokus Magazine's top ten most powerful people

1) Anders Borg, Moderate Party finance minister

2) Fredrik Reinfeldt, Moderate Party leader and prime minister

3) Stefan Löfven, Social Democrat leader

4) Stefan Ingves, head of the Swedish national bank the Riksbank

5) Jimmie Åkesson, Sweden Democrat leader

6) Karl-Petter Thorwaldsson, head of the Swedish Trade Union Confederation (LO)

7) Carl Bildt, Moderate Party foreign minister

8) Jan Björklund, Liberal Party (Folkpartiet) leader, education minister, and depute prime minister

9) Magdalena Andersson, Social Democrat shadow finance minister

10) Anna Kinberg Batra, Moderate Party leader in parliament

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FACT CHECK: Has the EU really banned Swedes from lighting bonfires?

Claims that a new EU law had outlawed lighting fires in private gardens have hit the headlines recently, with outraged Swedes accusing Brussels of banning Sweden's traditional spring fires. But how true are they?

Published: 19 April 2024 10:39 CEST
FACT CHECK: Has the EU really banned Swedes from lighting bonfires?

What’s happened?

On April 6th, TV4 Nyheter published a story claiming that burning twigs and leaves in private gardens has been illegal since the beginning of the year, due to new EU rules.

“A common habit for gardeners during their spring cleaning is now banned. An EU law which came into force at the beginning of the year demands that all food and garden waste are sorted separately,” the article states, quoting Milla Sundström, an administrator from the waste and chemicals unit of the Environmental Protection Agency (Naturvårdsverket) as saying this “indirectly” bans spring fires.

Sundström added that the ban is enforced by local councils, so rules may differ.

Wait… why is it so important for Swedes to burn twigs in their gardens?

It’s a common way of getting rid of the leaves and branches that have accumulated over the last year, with the ashes often used as fertiliser in the garden. It’s usually only allowed for a couple of weeks a year in spring and again in the autumn, and during Valborg at the end of April, when it’s traditional to light a spring bonfire.

Quite a lot of people in Sweden live in pretty remote areas, so it’s much easier for them to get rid of bulky garden waste by burning it rather than having to drive it off to the nearest recycling centre.

So has burning garden waste been banned by the EU?

Technically, no.

The EU law says that member states should “encourage the recycling, including composting and digestion, of bio-waste”, as well as encourage home composting and promoting the use of materials produced by bio-waste, but it doesn’t say anything about banning fires.

“This is the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard,” Center Party MEP Emma Wiesner wrote on X, before blaming the government for interpreting the law incorrectly.

“Banning tidying up in your own garden has clearly NOT been the EU’s intention. The inability of the government and authorities to implement the simplest of directives is embarrassing and adds to the contempt for politicians,” she added.

So who has banned fires on private property?

In a regulation from December 22nd, 2022 signed by Environment Minister Romina Pourmokhtari, the government writes that exemptions “from the prohibition on the incineration of separately collected waste” may be granted in the case of public events. 

This refers to a separate law governing waste, which states that “waste that has been collected separately to be prepared for reuse or recycling should not be incinerated”.

This regulation came into effect on January 1st, 2024.

Wait… what does that even mean?

Admittedly, the regulation isn’t particularly clear. Having said that, the new rules on bonfires appear to stem from Naturvårdsverket interpreting this regulation as an outright ban.

“The new regulations mean that garden waste must be composted on-site, left at a recycling centre, or collected by the council,” it writes in a post on its website dated April 11th. “In practice, this means that it is no longer permitted to burn branches, leaves and other garden waste”.

Naturvårdsverket claims that this is “part of the introduction of the EU’s waste directive, which means that bio-waste should primarily be recycled”.

It does, however, add that local councils are able to grant exceptions, “for example if it’s a long way to the closest recycling centre”.

So whose fault is it?

Energy and business minister Ebba Busch, who is head of the climate and business ministry, seemed to indicate in a post on X that the confusion was due to the badly-worded rules introduced by the government at the beginning of the year, which were designed to coincide with the EU’s waste directive.

“I want to be clear and say that the government has not introduced a new ban against burning garden waste,” she wrote, alongside a picture of her standing in front of a fire in her own garden.

“There are new rules, but not any huge changes compared to how it’s worked in the past. We can see that these can be interpreted in different ways. For that reason, the rules will be clarified,” she added.

Can I burn twigs in my garden then?

Maybe.

Despite politicians sharing posts telling you to “Keep calm and keep lighting fires,” you should check with your municipality before you do so.

Some, like Halmstad, have interpreted the new regulations as meaning that you can still light a fire in your own garden, while others require you to apply for an exemption (which usually includes paying a fee), whether you’re applying for a May bonfire or just want to burn some leaves in your own garden.

Others, like Värmdö municipality, allow you to burn things like twigs and small branches in your garden, while stating that grass and leaves should be composted.

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