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Sweden’s new prime minister resigns after government falls

Just hours after her election, Sweden's incoming Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson handed in her resignation after a tense budget vote threw the government into crisis.

Published: 24 November 2021 17:03 CET
Updated: 24 November 2021 18:31 CET
Sweden's new prime minister resigns after government falls
Incoming and outgoing Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson on Wednesday afternoon. Photo: Pontus Lundahl/TT

LATEST: Magdalena Andersson gets second shot at becoming prime minister

Her decision to step down followed a turbulent series of events that saw her budget fail to pass through parliament before the junior Greens Party announced it was leaving the coalition government. 

“There is a constitutional practice that a coalition government should resign when one party quits,” Andersson, a Social Democrat, told reporters.

“I don’t want to lead a government whose legitimacy will be questioned.”

Andersson said she hoped to be elected to the position again soon as the head of a minority government made up of only the Social Democrats.

Wednesday’s crisis began when the Centre Party withdrew its support for Andersson’s budget, due to the concessions made to the Left. That meant the new PM’s budget didn’t have enough votes to pass in parliament.

Lawmakers instead adopted an alternative budget presented by the opposition conservative Moderates, Christian Democrats and far-right Sweden Democrats.

The right-wing’s opposition budget – negotiated jointly by the conservative Moderates and Christian Democrats, and the Sweden Democrats – had won with 154 votes to 143.

The  fatal blow came when Greens leader Per Bolund said his party could not tolerate the opposition’s “historic budget, drafted for the first time with the far-right”, and quit the government.

The Greens slammed the approved budget, describing it as “differentiating between people, butchering the environmental budget, and increasing emissions”, referring to the new budget’s lowered petrol and diesel tax – a reduction of 50 öre per litre from May 1st 2022.

Bolund stated at a press conference that it is “not the Green Party’s goal to carry out a budget negotiated by the Sweden Democrats,” and that they “cannot sit in a government on a budget negotiated by the Sweden Democrats”.

KEY POINTS: What you need to know about Sweden’s new budget

Green Party spokespersons Per Bolund and Märta Stenevi. Photo: Pontus Lundahl/TT

Andersson had been set to formally assume her duties on Friday after a meeting with King Carl XVI Gustaf, after being approved by parliament in a separate vote on Wednesday morning.

Speaker of parliament Andreas Norlen said he had accepted Andersson’s resignation and would contact party leaders before deciding Thursday how to proceed.

The exact steps of what will happen next are not entirely clear. 

The Green Party did say that it would support Magdalena Andersson in another prime minister vote if it comes to that. This may mean that Andersson will eventually become prime minister anyway, if none of the party’s change their stance on supporting her bid.

The rules for a budget vote and a prime minister vote differ slightly in Sweden. In a budget vote, the proposal with the most yes votes wins. In a prime minister vote, the candidate wins as long as a majority does not vote against them.

This means that Andersson will need no more from the Centre Party than its abstentions in a second prime minister vote – this would be enough to make her PM, provided the Left Party and the Green Party also abstain or vote in her favour, which they likely will.

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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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