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Sweden’s winning right-bloc agrees to form government with far-right backing

Three Swedish right-wing parties have agreed to form a minority government with the unprecedented support of the far-right Sweden Democrats, immediately announcing plans to crack down on crime and immigration and build new nuclear power stations.

Sweden's winning right-bloc agrees to form government with far-right backing
Sweden Democrats Jimmie Akesson, Leader of the Moderate party Ulf Kristersson, Leader of the Christian Democrats Ebba Busch and Leader of the Liberal party Johan Pehrson address a press conference on the formation of a coalition government at the Parliament press office in Stockholm. Photo: Jonathan Nackstränd/ AFP

The incoming government will be made up of the Moderates, Christian Democrats and Liberals, with the far-right Sweden Democrats remaining outside the coalition but providing key support in parliament.

The four presented a roadmap Friday for their cooperation, outlining measures to address rising crime, immigration, energy policy, healthcare, education and the economy.

“Change is not just necessary, but possible, and the four of us can deliver that”, conservative Moderates leader Ulf Kristesson told reporters.

Parliament will vote on Kristersson as the new prime minister on Monday and the future government is expected to take office on Tuesday, just over a month after the right-wing won a narrow victory in a general election that ousted the Social Democrats after eight years in power.

The four right-wing parties together hold 176 of 349 seats in parliament. The anti-immigration and nationalist Sweden Democrats, once shunned as pariahs on Sweden’s political scene, were the big winners of the September 11 vote.

They emerged as the country’s second-largest party with a record 20.5 percent of votes, behind outgoing prime minister Magdalena Andersson’s Social Democrats, which have dominated Swedish politics since the 1930s.

KEY POINTS: What do we know about Sweden’s new government coalition deal?

Swedish Politics: Moderate leader Ulf Kristersson wins backing to be next PM

While far-right leader Jimmie Åkesson said he “would have preferred to sit in government”, he stressed that most important was that his party, as the biggest right-wing party, have influence over policy.

“We are going to deliver policy, especially in those areas our voters think are extra important, and crime policy is one such area”, he told reporters.

While the quartet presented a united front on Friday, they have traditionally been divided on a number of key policy areas and major concessions were made in the agreement, primarily to meet the far-right’s demands.

Sweden has struggled to contain soaring gang shootings and violence, and the roadmap calls for an introduction of visitation zones in some disadvantaged areas, harsher sentences for repeat offenders, double sentences for certain crimes and anonymous witnesses — all major concessions by the small Liberal party.

The incoming government also plans to make major cuts in Sweden’s generous refugee policy, reducing the number of quota refugees from 6,400 last year to 900 per year during its four-year mandate.

It will also ditch Sweden’s development aid target of one percent of gross national income and introduce a national ban on begging.

The four parties also agreed to not reduce unemployment benefits, a major concession to the far-right by the Moderates.

“What has been most important to the Sweden Democrats is that the change of government represent a paradigm shift”, Åkesson said.

Meanwhile, the future government also announced plans to build new nuclear reactors to meet the country’s rising electricity needs.

“New nuclear reactors will be built”, the leader of the Christian Democrats Ebba Busch told reporters. “We are going to meet our end of the Paris Agreement, but without destroying companies’ and Swedish households’ finances. The goal going forward is electrification and the way there is nuclear power”, she said.

The Scandinavian country voted in a 1980 non-binding referendum to phase out nuclear power.

The country has in recent years shut down six of its 12 reactors and the remaining ones, at three nuclear power plants, generate about 30 percent of the electricity used in the country today.

But it has struggled to find viable alternative energy sources to replace nuclear power, with renewable energies not yet able to fully meet its needs.

The outgoing Social Democratic government, in power for the past eight years, has traditionally been opposed to the construction of new reactors but acknowledged earlier this year that nuclear energy would be crucial for the foreseeable future.

Swedish energy group Vattenfall said therefore in June it was examining the possibility of building at least two small modular nuclear reactors (SMRs).

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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?

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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