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SWEDEN DEMOCRATS

Top Sweden Democrat goes on sick leave for burnout

The Sweden Democrat’s migration policy spokeswoman Paula Bieler has gone on sick leave for exhaustion.

Published: 17 October 2016 12:28 CEST
Top Sweden Democrat goes on sick leave for burnout
Paula Bieler. Photo: Jessica Gow/TT

Bieler, one of the nationalist party’s highest profile members of parliament, said she expects to be off work for the foreseeable future. 

Writing on Facebook, she said she had tried to scale back her activities “but unfortunately my well-being continued to go downwards”.

Two years ago Sweden Democrat party leader Jimmie Åkesson sparked a major surprise when he too announced he was taking a break from politics because of exhaustion. 

Mattias Karlsson stood in as party leader for five months before Åkesson returned to the fray at the end of March 2015. 

The party, with roots in the neo-Nazi movement, is a pariah in Swedish politics and other parties have vowed to keep it out of government.

But the Sweden’s Democrats’ popularity has propelled them into parliament and they are currently polling at 17 percent, making them the country's third largest party with two years to go until the next general election.

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.

Published: 2 May 2023 15:36 CEST
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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