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INSIDE SWEDEN

Inside Sweden: When the blizzard came in 1979 and 2024

The Local's editor Emma Löfgren writes about the biggest stories of the week in our Inside Sweden newsletter.

Published: 6 January 2024 09:30 CET
Inside Sweden: When the blizzard came in 1979 and 2024
Snow-covered cars on the E22 road through Skåne. Photo: Johan Nilsson/TT

Hej,

In 1979, a blizzard hit southern Sweden. 

Metres of snow piled high along the streets, rural villages were left completely isolated, and people abandoned their snowed-in cars on the motorway.

It’s a winter people still talk about in the southern Skåne region.

Those memories may now have been replaced with 2024.

A truck driver, who was stuck for 20 hours after the snowstorm left 1,000 cars stranded on the E22 road between Hörby and Kristianstad this week, told The Local that he had never seen anything like it in his 30-year career.

Northern Swedes may laugh. After all, temperatures in the south were modest compared to their record-breaking cold of below -40C earlier this week.

I spoke to two of The Local’s readers who live near Luleå and Kiruna about what life is like there when temperatures drop to such extreme levels.

Mainly, you try to stay inside as much as possible, for safety reasons, and heating your house becomes an all-day project. And you wear layers.

In southern Sweden, the problem isn’t so much the temperature or even the snow. It’s the combination of snow and wind, which means that even when the snow ploughs are out, drifting snow quickly renders the roads unusable. 

That’s more or less what happened when the 1,000 cars got stuck in a monster queue. It started on Wednesday when a couple of trucks struggled to climb an icy slope. Then a few cars got stuck behind them, then more cars behind those. Meanwhile, the snow kept falling and eventually no one could get out.

Thankfully, in the end everyone managed to evacuate and although some had to be picked up by ambulance (and everyone was pretty cold, hungry and tired), there were no reports of serious injuries among any of the stranded drivers.

In other news

I hope you had a good holiday. Here are a few stories you may find useful:

Several trains and buses have been flat-out cancelled this past week. But what are your rights as a passenger and can you get your money back? 

If the weather is as bad as it’s been in northern and southern Sweden this week, it’s best not to get in the car at all. But if you do need to drive, make sure you’re well prepared and drive safely (seriously!). Here are our best tips.

Extra powers for security guards, cheaper fuel and tougher punishments for gun crimes. Here are some of the new laws which came into force on January 1st, 2024. And while we’re on the topic of change, we took a look at some of the ways in which Swedish migration rules are set to change this year.

I personally was happy that temperatures fell to around -10C even in southern Sweden towards the end of the week, as it meant I got a chance to clean my woollen sweaters in the snow. Say what now? Yes, snow-cleaning is a thing.

It’s January 6th today, which is a public holiday in Sweden, although it’s not going to do you a lot of good as it falls on a Saturday this year. So what’s so special about this day and do Swedes do anything to celebrate it?

All the best,

Emma Löfgren

Editor, The Local Sweden

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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