Billström announced last week that he would formally hand in his resignation when parliament reopens on Tuesday.
Here are some of the candidates being spoken about in the Swedish media:
Johan Forssell
As the other minister serving alongside Billström in the foreign ministry, Forssell would in many ways be the default option. Referred to as “the only good-looking Moderate” in Herr Talman, SVT’s puppet satire programme, Forsell has long been the up-and-coming Moderate who never quite ups and comes.
He was chief of staff or stabschef for Sweden’s former PM Fredrik Reinfeldt between 2006 and 2010 and then seen as destined for great things. He was the party’s Justice spokesperson in the run-up to the 2022 election. So when he was appointed the Minister for Aid and Trade, a relatively junior role, when the new government was appointed in October 2022, it was seen as a snub.
Elevation to foreign minister would see him take a position at the level he has long been expected to reach, but perhaps he will be snubbed once again.
Maria Malmer Stenergard
As Migration Minister, Stenergard will already be well known to many, perhaps most, readers of The Local.
Given the importance for this government of tightening up migration and asylum, she has more in the spotlight than almost any other minister. She has so far proven skillful at handling what some would have seen a poisoned chalice: enacting a programme of migration reform largely drawn up by the far-right Sweden Democrats.
A lawyer from Åhus in Skåne, Stenergard has had the task of making measures that once might have seemed extreme seem reasonable, and has mastered the detail of the legal changes her government is pushing through.
In most governments, the post of foreign minister would be far more prestigious than the one she currently holds, but that may not be the case in this government and it’s far from certain she will want to shift stools while her job is still only half done.
Pål Jonson
Another minister with a brief made more prestigious by circumstance, Jonson, who has a PhD in military science from King’s College London, is well-regarded as defence minister, and certainly has the intellectual clout, English skills, and sheer wonkishness to hold his own in the world of international diplomacy.
The question is whether, with his undoubted expertise, he isn’t more useful as defence minister at a time when Sweden has to adapt to membership of the Nato Security Alliance and rebuild its armed forces.
Tomas Tobé
The Moderate MEP Tomas Tobé gained a significant profile in Europe when he served as rapporteur for the EU’s new Asylum and migration management pact, successfully winning support for the legislation from countries with wildly different positions.
He then led the Moderate Party’s campaign in the EU elections, helping prevent the country being overtaken by the Sweden Democrats as the second biggest Swedish party in the EU Parliament, as some had feared.
Like Forssell, Tobé has long history in the Moderate Party, serving as Party Secretary from 2015 to 2017 under Anna Kinberg-Batra. If he takes the role, Tobé, who lives with his husband Markus and two twins, will become the fourth openly LGBT person to become a minister in the current government.
Henrik Landerholm
Described in political circles as Kristerssons bästis, or “Kristersson’s best friend”, Landerholm has been close to Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson ever since they two were pupils in Torshälla, Sörmland.
They travelled to Oxford University as young students, went into the Moderate Party’s youth wing together, and then both worked at the right-wing lobby organisation Timbro. They remain close friends today, with their children reportedly playing together.
This led to accusations of vänskapskorruption, or “friendship correction”, when Landerholm was appointed Sweden’s National Security Advisor in November 2022.
In his defence, it must be said that Landerholm has not historically had to rely on Kristiersson’s patronage. He was appointed Ambassador to Abu Dhabi and then Director General of the Psychological Defence Agency by the previous Social Democrat-led government.
Diana Janse
Diana Janse, State Secretary to Aid and Trade Minister Johan Forssell, is another candidate with long ambassadorial experience, having served as Sweden’s Ambassador to Georgia between 2010 and 2014, to Syria between 2014 and 2015 and to Mali between 2019 and 2021. She joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1999 and worked in Afghanisatn between 2004 and 2006.
She was floated as a possible candidate for foreign minister in the run-up to the formation of the government in October 2022, and, as with Forsell, it was seen as a disappointment when she was only given a State Secretary position.
It is perhaps more likely that Forsell be given the foreign minister role, with Janse then taking his position as aid and trade minister.
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