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Swedish parliament votes through centre-right budget

Sweden's parliament on Wednesday backed a budget proposal from the Moderates and Christian Democrats, currently in opposition.

Published: 13 December 2018 07:39 CET

Swedish parliament votes through centre-right budget

Parliament pictured during the budget vote. Photo: Anders Wiklund / TT

The caretaker government presented a transition budget, put together in consultation with the opposition Alliance and the Left Party. This was done in order to keep the proposal as politically neutral as possible, because caretaker governments are not meant to make partisan decisions.

But opposition parties are still allowed to put forward their own budget proposals, and it was the suggestion of Alliance parties Moderates and the Christian Democrats that won the most votes.

This was possible after the Sweden Democrats, a far-right party and the third largest group in parliament, voted for the opposition budget.

The other two parties of the Alliance group, the Centre Party and Liberals, each put forward their own budgets and did not vote for any of the other suggestions. The defeat came as a blow for centre-left Social Democrat leader Stefan Löfven, who faces — and is expected to lose — a parliamentary vote on Friday as to whether he will be accepted as Sweden's next prime minister.

The Moderate-Christian Democrat budget includes changes to income tax, such as raising the rate for one tax threshold from a monthly salary of 40,000 kronor to 42,000.

A tax on flights, introduced by the previous centre-left government for environmental reasons last year, would also be abolished in the new budget.

Sweden does not yet have a government, two months after the election, so whatever shape the next government takes, this is the budget they will have to work with.

Some changes can be made in the spring budget, and in certain special circumstances it's possible to ask parliament for adjustments as early as January, but there are several areas including income tax rates where changes can't be made more than once a year.

TIMELINE: Everything that's happened in Swedish politics since the elections

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Sweden Democrats promise 'softer tone' after troll factory sparks right-wing rift

The announcement came after Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson sharply criticised Sweden Democrat leader Jimmie Åkesson, after the latter referred to the documentary as a “gigantic domestic influence operation” by the “collective left-liberal establishment”.

“It’s a dreadful Americanisation of politics,” Kristersson told the TT news agency, presumably referring to the similarities between former US President Donald Trump and the six-minute video posted by Åkesson in which he launched a verbal attack on Swedish journalists.

The documentary, in which a reporter working for TV4’s Kalla Fakta programme goes undercover within the Sweden Democrats’ communications department, reveals a number of things, including attempts at smear campaigns on politicians from other parties.

It reveals a total of 23 different anonymous accounts spread across TikTok, YouTube, Instagram and Facebook, which are all run by the Sweden Democrats and also spread for example radical anti-immigration views. These accounts have a combined 260,000 followers and published roughly 1,000 posts in the first three months of the year, which were viewed over 27 million times.

In one clip, communications head Joakim Wallerstein tells the group of troll factory workers to “find shit” on the Christian Democrats’ top candidate for the EU parliament, Alice Teodorescu Måwe – despite the fact that the so-called Tidö coalition agreement between the Moderates, Christian Democrats, Liberals and the Sweden Democrats states that they should respect and not attack each other.

The leaders of the other three right-wing parties all called the revelations a violation of the Tidö agreement, but Kristersson told TT that the collaboration would continue, although he added that trust in the Sweden Democrats had been damaged. Asked whether or not it was possible to trust the Sweden Democrats, who until now have consistently denied rumours of a troll factory, he said:

“I can’t answer that right now,” adding “I think there are clear signs that they have smeared opponents.”

Sweden Democrat party secretary Mattias Bäckström Johansson reiterated on Thursday that they consider the documentary an “influence operation”, but promised to adjust some of their posts on social media in the future, specifically the ones that mention the other Tidö parties.

“We are prepared to make small adjustments to soften the tone going forward, so that we can again focus on solving important problems in society,” he told TT, saying that the posts were satire clips spread by two members of the party’s communications department.

He said the pair would be assigned other jobs until they’ve been trained in the Tidö agreement’s so-called “respect clause”, and that the Sweden Democrats had shown the other three parties a list of social media posts about those three parties that they would delete.

But the Liberals said it wasn’t enough and demanded that the Sweden Democrats close down all anonymous accounts, that the four Tidö parties halt all joint press conferences until the EU election, and that the Sweden Democrats commit to following the respect clause.

Representatives of the four parties were set to meet on Thursday afternoon.

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