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POLITICS

What are Sweden’s church elections and how do they work?

September 19th is the date of Sweden's Church Election, a surprising tradition in a largely secular country.

Published: 13 September 2021 16:59 CEST
What are Sweden's church elections and how do they work?
Sweden's church elections use a very similar system to the parliamentary elections. Photo: Johan Nilsson/TT

The Lutheran Church of Sweden retains a special status in Sweden, even if church and state were officially separated in 2000.

Nevertheless, it’s Europe’s largest Lutheran denomination, and worldwide only Ethiopia and Tazmania have larger Lutheran church bodies. Headquarted in Uppsala and led by Antje Jackelén, Sweden’s first female archbishop, its main roles are offering church services including weddings, baptisms and funerals, but also offering support to members of its congregations and even aid overseas.

The contenders in the election are sometimes linked to political parties, with the Social Democrats currently the largest represented group and the Centre Party and Sweden Democrats also putting forward candidates. Some other groups are linked to certain political parties, such as the Christian Democrats in the Swedish Church, the Left in the Swedish Church, the Green Party in the Swedish Church, and the Free Liberals in the Swedish Church.

Other groups without any political party ties also field candidates, including the Non-partisans in Church of Sweden (Posk), which became the second largest group in the 2017 election.

One of the big questions is how church funds should be spent, but there are also debates on how the Church should be run. For example, the Christian Democrats are in favour of the introduction of Christian schools, the Left want to devote more funds to the Church’s social work supporting vulnerable parishioners, and some parties have also taken a clear stance on whether priests should be obliged to carry out marriages for same-sex couples.

Sweden’s church elections were modelled on national elections back at the time when it was a state church, and there are elections to the 249 seats of the Synod, as well as at the the diocesan and parish levels.

The elections take place every four years, just like Sweden’s general elections – although they run on different schedules. Even if they ended up scheduled for the same year, as looked possible this year when Sweden’s prime minister resigned, the two cannot be held on the same day due to rules that state elections must be carried out in a neutral way (värdeneutral in Swedish).

The other big difference between the two votes is that while Sweden has typically high voter turnouts for its parliamentary elections, the church elections usually see low turnouts. The previous vote saw only 19 percent of eligible voters head to the polls, which was still the highest turnout since 1934.

Around half the population has the right to vote, which requires being aged over 16 and a member of the Church. Up until 1996, newly born children were automatically made members unless their parents opted out, but this was changed to opt-in. 

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SWEDEN EXPLAINED

How to start a club or ‘förening’ for your sport or hobby in Sweden

Sweden has more than 200,000 voluntary clubs and associations and the majority of Swedes are involved in at least one of them. How can you start your own?

Published: 22 July 2024 10:55 CEST
How to start a club or 'förening' for your sport or hobby in Sweden

What is föreningsliv in Sweden? 

Föreningsliv – association or club life – is a central part of Sweden’s social fabric. Rather than socialising in bars, cafés or on the streets, a big chunk of Swedish social life has historically taken place around things like football clubs, weaving circles, tango dancing groups and the like. 

More than half the population in Sweden is involved in running some sort of voluntary organisation or club, and of those that are involved, half are involved in running two or more. 

And Swedes are proud of the rather formal way clubs and associations are organised. Most have a board led by a chair, normally with a deputy chair, secretary, treasurer, and other board members. Swedes see this level of organisation life as a “school for democracy”, the fundamental building block of an effective system for reaching consensus that reaches all the way to the national parliament. 

So for foreigners, getting involved in föreningsliv is a quick and effective way to get more integrated, helping them not only to meet Swedes but also to understand how they think and what makes the country tick. 

What do you need to start a förening in Sweden? 

There’s nothing to stop you just getting together with some people with similar interests and just starting a club or association without registering it anywhere at all.

Freedom of association, or föreningsfrihet, is one of Sweden’s fundamental constitutional rights, going right back to the 1600s, and that freedom includes the right to run your club however you see fit, without needing to register it with any government agency. 

You also do not need to have stadgar (rules), a styrelse (board), or any officers. But Swedes would generally want to have this structure in place, whether or not they decide to register the club formally. 

If you want your club or association to outlast you, want to have a shared bank account, or want to be able to apply for and receive grants, it can be worth registering as a voluntary organisation or ideell förening. 

How do you start a förening? 

To establish a new club formally takes three clear steps: 

  1. You need to meet (or communicate online) to decide what sort of club or association you want to start, what the name will be, and sketch out what you will do. The people at this meeting can call themselves the interimstyrelse, or interim board, but no such formalities are necessary. 
  2. You need to draw up a list of stadgar or club statutes. These should include a description of the association’s name, its aims and goals, and how decisions will be made. The Swedish Sports Confederation has a helpful template for a new organisation’s statutes here, which covers most of questions you need to agree on. 
  3. You need to hold a meeting where the association is formally established and its board chosen.

What needs to happen in the meeting establishing an association in Sweden? 

Protocols are taken very seriously in Swedish föreningsliv, so the establishing meeting will typically be announced in advance on social media or with a leaflet posted somewhere where those likely to be interested might see it.

The meeting should be open to people unknown to the founding members, and the issues to be discussed should be laid out in an agenda sent out in advance. 

The meeting will normally follow a standard agenda, which will run something like this: 

  • Register of all those present
  • Selection of chair for the meeting 
  • Selection of secretary for the meeting 
  • Selection of two justerare. The job of a justerare is to check that the record of the meeting made by the secretary is accurate. 
  • Determination of the agenda for the meeting
  • Vote on whether the association should be established 
  • Discussion and vote on whether the statutes put forward should be accepted 
  • Discussion and vote on the name of the association
  • Decision on whether there should be a membership fee (and if so, how much) 
  • Decision on a board, with a chair and at least two board members, who will stay in place until the first annual meeting 
  • Decision on date for first annual meeting 

The stadgar will normally state that the call out to the Annual General Meeting (AGM) must take place at least two weeks before it happens, so the next stage is to call an AGM inviting everyone you expect to want to take part in the club. At this meeting, a new board is voted in with the acceptance of all members in attendance. 

How to register a förening 

If you want your club or association to have a bank account, be able to hire premises, apply for grants or work with companies or the municipality, you need to register it with the Swedish Tax Agency.

You can apply for an organisation number through filling in this form here and sending it to the Swedish Tax Agency together with your organisation’s statutes and the protocol from the meeting establishing it. 

What next? 

It can be helpful for sports clubs to be part of an umbrella organisation for their sport, which is perhaps best done through this form on the website of the Swedish Sports Confederation, which will direct clubs to the right organisation. 

You can also apply for grants from your local municipality to help run your club or association, with applications in Stockholm made on this page here, in Gothenburg here, and in Malmö here. 

Good luck! 

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