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Sweden to investigate strengthening government crisis powers

Should Sweden's constitution be updated to give the government greater powers during peacetime crises? A new parliamentary committee has been appointed to investigate this.

Published: 1 October 2021 17:29 CEST
The Swedish government, king and queen
Members of Sweden's current government are pictured meeting with the country's king and queen. Photo: Christine Olsson/TT

Sweden does not currently have structures in place for a peacetime state of emergency, in contrast to some other European countries.

A committee made up of members of all eight parties in Swedish parliament will now investigate whether the constitution should be updated, following a government decision on Thursday.

“Sweden stands out. We have comparatively few powers [compared to other governments during peacetime crises],” said Justice Minister Morgan Johansson at a press conference announcing the investigation. He added: “These are sensitive issues, of course. How much power do you dare to hand to the government, even if there are crisis situations.”

Under Sweden’s existing framework, the constitution sets out which areas of policy and law must be decided on by parliament and which can be decided by the government. The government does not have any powers to bypass this, no matter how urgent the decision may be, outside of a war situation. If Sweden finds itself in a war or in danger of war, the parliament can be replaced by what is called a war delegation: the parliamentary speaker and 50 members of parliament.

Johansson said that the Covid-19 pandemic had highlighted how the lack of a peacetime crisis structure can slow down decision-making in times when moving quickly is vital, giving natural disasters or terrorist attacks as other examples where extra powers may come in useful.

For example, Sweden was able to pass a temporary ‘pandemic law’ giving the government extra powers, but this came into effect only after two ‘waves’ of Covid-19 had hit the country. Under that law, the government was able to impose limits on opening hours and visitor numbers in various businesses and environments without needing to go through parliament. 

It’s not the first time that extra peacetime powers have been discussed in Sweden.

In 2008, another inquiry into the constitution made several proposals, including a state where the government would be allowed to make short-term decisions in areas that are usually up to parliament to decide, but the government at the time did not move forward with it.

The newly appointed committee has until November 23rd to carry out the assignment and present its report.

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INSIDE SWEDEN

Inside Sweden: Why troll factory won’t spark a government crisis

The Local's editor Emma Löfgren rounds up the biggest stories of the week in our Inside Sweden newsletter.

Published: 18 May 2024 09:22 CEST
Inside Sweden: Why troll factory won't spark a government crisis

Hej,

News that the Sweden Democrats are operating a far-right troll factory – which among other things the party uses to smear political opponents as well as its supposed allies – has caused probably the biggest rift yet between them and the three other parties that make up Sweden’s ruling coalition.

The leaders of the Moderates, Christian Democrats and Liberals all strongly criticised the Sweden Democrats’ blatant violation of the so-called “respect clause” in their Tidö collaboration agreement – the clause that states that the four parties should speak respectfully of each other in the media.

But after crisis talks held on Thursday, the conflict appears to be dying down.

The Sweden Democrats hit out strongly at the TV4 Kalla Fakta documentary where the troll factory was revealed, calling it a smear campaign and disinformation, but simultaneously went as far as to confirm that they do run anonymous social media accounts for which they refused to apologise.

They did say sorry to the Tidö parties for including them in the smear campaigns, and promised to remove some of the posts that had offended the other three parties, plus reassign a couple of members of staff to other duties until they’ve been given training on the Tidö “respect clause”.

But that doesn’t remove the fact that they vowed to continue the anonymous social media accounts whose existence they had prior to the documentary consistently denied, or the fact that some of the social media posts shared not only vague anti-immigration content, but white power propaganda.

The Liberals took the row the furthest, with Liberal leader Johan Pehrson describing people in his party as skitförbannade – pissed off as hell. He said ahead of the crisis meeting that they would demand that the Sweden Democrats cease all anonymous posting, which the latter rejected.

The party had two choices: walk out of the government collaboration and possibly spark a snap election, or walk back its strong words ahead of the meeting and wait for it to blow over.

They chose a kind of middle way, and called for an inquiry to be launched into banning political parties from operating anonymous social media accounts. The Social Democrats immediately accused the Liberals of trying to “bury the issue in an inquiry” – a classic Swedish political method of indecisive conflict avoidance which the Social Democrats themselves are well familiar with.

The Christian Democrats and Moderates both said that the Sweden Democrats had accepted their criticism and welcomed the party’s reshuffling of staff within its communications department, adding that it still had to prove its commitment to the Tidö agreement going forward.

So why isn’t this causing a bigger government crisis?

We asked Evelyn Jones, a politics reporter for the Dagens Nyheter daily, to come on the Sweden in Focus podcast to explain it to us:

“The Sweden Democrats are the biggest party in this coalition, even though they’re not part of the government. So the government really needs them. It’s hard for them to just stop cooperating with the Sweden Democrats,” she said.

“The cooperation between the government parties and the Sweden Democrats has been going pretty smoothly since the last election – more smoothly than a lot of people thought. This is probably the biggest crisis so far, but how big it is, is hard to say.”

You can listen to the full interview with her and the rest of the Sweden in Focus podcast here. 

In other news

If you are a descendant of a Sweden-born person and would like to find out more about them, there are ways to do that. I wrote this week about how to research your Swedish ancestry.

That guide was prompted by my interview with the chair of a community history group in a small parish in north-central Sweden, which has tried to get to the bottom of rumours that US mega star Taylor Swift’s ancestors hail from their village. I had so much fun writing this article.

The EU elections will be held on June 9th, but advance voting begins next week in Sweden. And poll cards are already being sent out, so if you’re eligible to vote you should receive yours soon.

Sweden’s consumer price index fell to 3.9 percent in April, below 4.0 percent for the first time in two years, reinforcing predictions that the central bank will keep lowering interest rates.

Sweden’s four-party government bloc has broken with the other parties in a parliamentary committee on public service broadcasting, adding what the opposition complains are “radically changed” proposals. How shocking are they?

Many people move to Sweden because of their partner’s career. Perhaps you’re one of these so-called “trailing spouses”. I’ve been asking readers in this situation how they’re settling in, and will have an article for you next week. There’s still time to answer our survey to share your experience.

Thanks for reading.

Have a good weekend,

Emma

Inside Sweden is our weekly newsletter for members which gives you news, analysis and, sometimes, takes you behind the scenes at The Local. It’s published each Saturday and with Membership+ you can also receive it directly to your inbox.

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