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INSIDE SWEDEN

Inside Sweden: Three key dates that could change your household budget

The Local's editor gives you a roundup of the week that's been in our Inside Sweden newsletter.

Published: 2 September 2023 07:06 CEST
Inside Sweden: Three key dates that could change your household budget
Sweden's next budget will be revealed this month. Here's what it looked like when Finance Minister Elisabeth Svantesson presented it to parliament last year. Photo: Pontus Lundahl/TT

Hej,

There are plenty of things happening in Sweden this month, at least three of which may have a big impact on your household budget. We have, as usual, rounded them all up in an article for members of The Local, but here’s a short list:

  • September 12th: Deadline to pay any tax arrears you owe
  • September 20th: New budget bill to be revealed
  • September 21st: New interest rate hike expected

I’m personally keeping my eye on the interest rate announcement, as I’m still trying to sell my old house, battling a painfully slow-moving housing market.

Is it a buyer’s market at the moment?

On the one hand, buying something now may be a risky move, as interest rates are expected to keep rising in Sweden a little while longer – you don’t want to end up with a huge mortgage that you’re suddenly not able to pay off. 

On the other hand, the slow market means that sellers are getting more and more desperate, so it may even be possible for you to put in an offer below the asking price – a practice known as skambud in Swedish, “shameful bid”.

In other news

Why does Sweden allow Quran burnings? 

In the latest episode of our Sweden in Focus podcast, host Paul O’Mahony is joined by The Local’s James Savage and Becky Waterton, as well as Julia Agha, publisher of the Arabic-language news service Al Kompis.

Yes, you read that right, The Local’s Sweden in Focus podcast is back from the summer hiatus. What topics would you like us to cover this season? If you have time to fill out our survey to answer that question, it will be much appreciated. 

Sweden’s tourism association in a remarkable change-of-strategy this week announced it would try to cut tourist numbers to some of the country’s most popular mountains by closing restaurants and reducing opening hours.

There’s a reason: the area has become so popular with tourists in recent years that it’s affecting reindeer herding. The tourism association said it wanted to create a sustainable future for hiking, outdoor life as well as the Sami community.

A new director-general of the Swedish Migration Agency will start her job later this month. Here’s what we know about her so far, and we will obviously continue to keep a close eye on the government’s migration “paradigm shift” as well as how well the Migration Agency manages to cut waiting times. 

Speaking of which, we update this article every so often to keep readers up-to-date on the progress of potential changes to residence permits and so on. 

India is growing in popularity among Swedish businesses, a new survey suggests. We published the latest issue of The Local’s Indians in Sweden newsletter this week, which was guest edited by Manu Uniyal. 

What’s the best place for an autumn getaway in Sweden? Let’s hear your thoughts and we’ll try to use readers’ tips in a future article on The Local.

Have a great weekend,

Emma

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

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For members

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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