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Stefan Löfven resigns as Prime Minister of Sweden

Stefan Löfven has handed in his resignation as Prime Minister, an expected move after he stepped down as leader of the Social Democrats last week.

Published: 10 November 2021 12:05 CET
Updated: 10 November 2021 17:39 CET
Stefan Löfven resigns as Prime Minister of Sweden
Outgoing Prime Minister Stefan Löfven and parliamentary speaker Andreas Norlén. Photo: Anders Wiklund/TT

Television cameras filmed Löfven handing his resignation letter to the speaker of parliament, Andreas Norlén.

“Well, here we are again,” he said as he and Norlén sat down for a Swedish fika – coffee and biscuits.

Andersson, who is currently Finance Minister, was elected to replace Löfven as party leader of the Social Democrats at the party’s congress last week, putting her on track to become the country’s first woman Prime Minister if she wins a vote in parliament.

No date has been set for that vote yet.

In Sweden’s parliament, political forces are so finely balanced that the Social Democrats need the support of both their Green Party coalition partners and the Left and Centre parties to elect a new Prime Minister.

The Centre Party on Wednesday said it would back Andersson, but the Left Party has not yet confirmed what it’s going to do.

The act of installing the first woman prime minister sounds almost anachronistic in a country that has long championed gender equality. All other Nordic countries – Norway, Denmark, Finland and Iceland – have all seen women lead their governments.

The change at the head of the Social Democrats comes as the party hovers close to its lowest-ever approval ratings with elections less than a year away, in September 2022.

The right-wing opposition, led by the conservative Moderates, has in recent years inched closer to the anti-immigration Sweden Democrats and hopes to govern with its informal backing.

‘Tight’ election seen

After being confirmed as party leader last week, Andersson, a former junior swimming champion often described as a “pragmatic” politician, outlined three political priorities for the coming years.

She said she wanted to “take back democratic control of schools, healthcare and elderly care”, in a country that has long had a debate over welfare sector liberalisation and privatisation and companies being able to profit from taxpayer money.

She also said she aimed to make Sweden a leader in the climate transition and become a role model for the world.

However, it remains to be seen how much change Andersson will be able to bring to the Social Democrats.

“Magdalena Andersson has worked closely together with Löfven for seven years. I expect no major changes,” Anders Sannerstedt, political science professor at Lund University, told AFP.

“The Social Democrats need to come up with some new policy ideas” if they want to win the election, he said.

But “Andersson is more a technocratic bureaucrat than a visionary creative leader. Time will tell.”

He predicted the general election would be a “very tight race”.

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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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