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Swedish minister faces no-confidence vote over ‘irresponsible’ climate plan

Sweden's climate minister is facing a no-confidence motion after announcing a long-awaited climate plan which critics claim contains few of the concrete measures needed to meet 2030 emissions targets.

Published: 21 December 2023 15:15 CET
Swedish minister faces no-confidence vote over 'irresponsible' climate plan
Sweden's climate minister, Romina Pourmokhtari, during the press conference announcing the new climate plan. Photo: Jessica Gow/TT

The Green Party said it would launch a no-confidence motion against Romina Pourmokhtari, quickly gaining the backing of the Centre Party and the Left Party. 

“The Green Party cannot have confidence in a climate minister who is pushing through shock increases in emissions,” Daniel Helldén, the party’s joint leader, told Aftonbladet after the plan was announced on Thursday. “They are quite deliberately pushing responsibility for the future out into the future. Those who are going to have to deal with the consequences are ordinary Swedes and our businesses.” 

“They are actively breaking the climate law,” agreed Rickard Nordin, the Centre Party’s energy policy spokesperson. “This is irresponsible and unacceptable.”

Pourmokhtari announced the plan alongside Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson at a press conference on Thursday.

“The core of this climate plan is energy policy and an increase in energy production,” she said, claiming that the plan contains 50 new measures aimed at reducing emissions. “I am convinced that this plan will set Sweden on the right course.” 

While she said the plan would help the country reach net zero by 2045, she was reticent about Sweden’s climate goals for 2030.

According to the government’s own budget, Sweden is on track to miss its 2030 targets as a consequence of its decision to cut tax on petrol and diesel and sharply reduce the amount of biofuel that needs to be blended with these fuels. 

According to a press release from Pourmokhtari’s Liberal Party, measures in the plan include a “distance-based system for the taxation of heavy goods transport”, an 800 million kronor increase in the Climate Leap subsidy for green businesses, and plans to look at subsidies for electric planes.

The plan also contains a call for a new analysis of how to make sure charging points for electric vehicles are established across the country, and a green labelling scheme to help consumers choose light, energy efficient vehicles. 

But Sweden’s public broadcaster SVT reported on Wednesday that several key proposals had been removed from the plan at the last minute on the insistence of the the far-right Sweden Democrats, including a commitment to ending the sale of diesel and petrol-driven cars from 2030. 

“It didn’t need to be this way,” Helldén said. “This is the result of the Liberals choosing every day to negotiate away our future with the Sweden Democrats. The Green Party’s door stands open for anyone who truly wants to negotiate policies for a just green transition. The Liberals have chosen the Sweden Democrats.” 

Karin Lexén, secretary-general at The Swedish Society for Nature Conservation, told the TT newswire that the plan lacked any new measures which would come close to making up for the rise in emissions created by the government’s decision to sharply reduce rules requiring biofuels to be blended with petrol and diesel. 

It is also, she complained, much too heavily reliant on paying for emissions reductions internationally to reach Swedish goals, something even professor John Hassler, who ran the government’s own climate policy inquiry, recommended against, arguing that the framework for this had yet to be agreed internationally. 

The Social Democrats, the main party of the centre-left opposition, also criticised the plan as a “betrayal of promises”, but didn’t immediately say whether or not they would join a vote of no-confidence against Pourmokhtari. The four parties don’t together hold a majority in parliament, so in order to oust a minister they would need a few MPs from the right wing to also vote against her.

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WORK PERMITS

Sweden’s Migration Agency rejects role in work permit salary threshold exemption plan

Sweden's Migration Agency has rejected a call for it to be responsible for drawing up a list of in-demand skills and professions exempted from the coming median-salary requirement for a work permit.

Published: 25 June 2024 12:02 CEST
Sweden's Migration Agency rejects role in work permit salary threshold exemption plan

In the conclusions to a government inquiry into setting the median salary threshold, judge Ann-Jeanette Eriksson proposed that the Migration Agency be made responsible for drawing up annual national and regional lists of professions which should be exempted from the threshold.

The list of proposed exemptions could then, she recommended, either be passed to the government for a final decision, or else apply immediately. 

In its response to consultation, the Migration Agency said that it did not believe that it was the right agency to draw up the list. 

“The Migration Agency considers that the task of preparing these proposals should be given to the Swedish Public Employment Service which is the expert agency on labour market issues,” the agency said. 

“As the expert agency, the Swedish Public Employment Service has much broader competence when it comes to judging the demand for labour.”

The employment service could then consult the Migration Agency and other relevant agencies before passing the list to the government, it recommended. 

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The Swedish Public Employment Service did not echo the Migration Agency’s call in its own response. 

It did, however, recommend an alternative system proposed by Eriksson, under which the Migration Agency, rather than the government, would have the final say on which jobs should be exempted. 

“The alternative proposal would mean a simpler process and shorter handling time”, the service said. 

The Migration Agency, however, said it did not support this alternative proposal, without giving any reasons for this.

It did call for a consideration over “whether it might be necessary to consult with other authorities before the proposals are made to the government”.

The agency also called for more specific language on what “considerations around migration law” it should apply when deciding on which professions to exempt. 

In some of its comments on the detail or proposals, the Migration Agency highlighted that the law should specify that work permit applicants need to be offered a salary that meets or exceeds Sweden’s median salary “at the time of application”, and also called for more specifics on how to define a “monthly salary”.

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Eriksson also recommended that Migration Agency be tasked with deciding which industries should be entirely excluded from the work permit system because they have historically had problems with the exploitation of labour migrants and abuse of the work permit system.  

“The possibility of excluding certain groups of jobs is an important tool in the work against exploitation in the workplace,” the agency said of this proposal.

But it said that to carry out this task properly, it would need more information on what criteria should be applied when making such exclusions as well as increased powers to cooperate and share information with other agencies involved in combatting exploitation and abuse in the workplace. 

“For this work to be even more effective, more tools are needed that enable more thorough controls. This is both about developing regulations that provide the Migration Agency with wider powers to carry out checks that facilitate cooperation and information exchange between relevant authorities and organisations,” it said. 

When it comes to the impact of the proposals on its own internal workings, the agency said it agreed broadly with the Eriksson’s judgement that they would not increase the workload at the agency.

The extra work required to carry out its new tasks would, it said, be largely offset by the lower work load following from the proposed abolition of the spårbyte, or “track change” system which allows rejected asylum seekers to stay in the country and apply for work permits. 

It did warn, however, that the changes could lead to even longer processing times for work permit applications. 

“The Migration Agency would like to highlight that the proposed changes to the law, and in particular the salary threshold and the regional and national exemptions from this threshold might affect handling times for work permit cases,” it wrote. 

“The regulatory framework around labour migration is already complex today and involves several decision points. Judging whether an application concerns a job for which there is a national or regional shortage will require a new decision point which will require education and preparation.” 

To reduce the extra demand on resources, the agency called on the government to make the regulation “as precise as possible”, leaving as little room as possible for different interpretations, which would then allow the agency to speed up processing and even digitalise some decisions. 

If the plans to raise the work permit salary threshold from 80 percent of the median salary to 100 percent go through, the idea is that they would come into effect in June next year (although work permit holders renewing their permits would get a one-year grace period).

But the proposal has received a slew of criticism from Swedish business organisations, which argue that it would make it harder to fill essential roles and attract international talent.

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