Read news from:
Austria
SHARE
COPY LINK

ENERGY

Top Moderates accuse government of ‘breaking promise’ on power prices

Leading Moderate Party politicians in Skåne have attacked the new government for failing to deliver the promised support to those suffering sky high power bills in the southern Swedish county.

Published: 1 November 2022 13:01 CET
Top Moderates accuse government of 'breaking promise' on power prices
Carl Johan Sonesson, the Moderate who leads the regional government in Skåne, said the government had broken its promise to voters. Photo: Johan Nilsson/TT

“This is not the high-cost protection we were promised and which we promised our voters,” Carl Johan Sonesson, the Moderate head of Skåne’s regional government wrote in the Expressen newspaper, together with Carina Wutzler, mayor of Vellinge, Christian Sonesson, mayor of Staffanstorp, and Anna Jähnke, the councillor in charge of regional development. 

The four politicians, some of the most powerful Moderates in the region, said that when Energy and Business minister Ebba Busch announced the government’s plans to support those facing power high power prices, they had been astonished.

“There were many of us among the Moderates in Skåne who both raised our eyebrows and needed to listen again before we understood that what was being presented was something completely different from what we had been promised,” they wrote. 

“Instead of high-cost protection for the coming winter, what was presented was a system of repayments for the year which has already passed.” 

They wrote that the system announced last week would mainly benefit those on fixed contracts, even though it was people with variable contracts who were facing the biggest problem with prices. In addition, they wrote, the model presented would do nothing to protect businesses in Skåne from the high electricity prices this winter, which they warned risk leading to bankruptcies and unemployment. 

READ ALSO: What do we know about Sweden’s electricity price subsidy? 

“We, together with many other Moderates in Skåne promised people in Skåne that a vote for the Moderates would mean that a system for high cost protection would already be in place this winter,” they conclude. “We expect that our new prime minister and government keep that promise.” 

Ulf Kristersson, Sweden’s prime minister, who himself represents the Moderate Party, said that in his opinion the system announced (which had in fact been ordered by the Social Democrats ahead of the election) was “close enough” to what his party had promised. 

“I think it’s pretty close [to what we promised],” he said, saying that the government had had to alter their plans out of expediency. “It was because we were keen to get something done quickly, which it was possible to do.” 

“I think it’s important that we could keep our promise to, before November 1st, say how we planned to handle retroactively the extremely high prices there have already been.”  

Member comments

Log in here to leave a comment.
Become a Member to leave a comment.
For members

CLIMATE

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.

SHOW COMMENTS