Sweden’s incoming prime minister shifts right – POLITICO
STOCKHOLM — Sweden’s incoming prime minister, Ulf Kristersson, presented his plan for a three-party government on Friday with a clear underlying message: Sweden first.
The number of asylum seekers allowed to enter Sweden will decrease, the amount of international aid the country will provide will be reduced and its ambitions to be a trailblazer in the global transition to renewable energy will be dampened, Kristersson told reporters in the Riksdag.
Kristersson, the narrow victor in a parliamentary election on September 11, said his new government will consist of his moderate party and two other centrist parties, the Christian Democrats and the Liberals.
The far-right Sweden Democrats (SD) were shut out of the government, but will provide the parliamentary support Kristersson needs to become prime minister and implement his policies and spending plans.
The cost of shutting out the SD, which has its roots in 1990s neo-Nazi groups, while securing its parliamentary support was high in political terms.
The new government’s plan – called “An agreement for Sweden” – was strongly influenced by SD’s election promises in areas from welfare to law and order to energy.
The punishment for serious and organized crime must be toughened, more nuclear power plants must be built and the social benefits for those dismissed must not be cut.
But it was undoubtedly when it comes to Sweden’s role on the international stage that SD’s views can be felt most clearly: The number of asylum seekers that the Nordic country will receive must be reduced to the EU minimum and a previous goal of allocating 1 percent of gross national income to international aid will be scrapped.
Basically, Sweden’s days of striving to become a “humanitarian superpower” are over.
Kristersson said a compromise with SD and his other allies had been necessary to create the new government he believed Sweden needed.
– We have done as we said during the election campaign, Kristersson said. “We have reached an agreement that we believe is good for Sweden.”
Parliament will vote on Kristersson’s candidacy to be prime minister on Monday, with Friday’s deal paving the way for him to win that vote 176 to 173. He is expected to announce his ministerial team on Tuesday and his 2023 budget in the following weeks.
Challenges ahead
Once installed, the new government will face a range of domestic challenges from high energy prices to rising gang crime.
On the international stage, Sweden takes over the presidency of the Council of the EU in January from the Czech Republic, and the government will have to reconcile SD’s anti-EU tendencies with the broader government’s pro-European orientation before then.
Sweden is also in the late stages of negotiating its entry into NATO alongside Finland. Kristersson has left the outgoing social democratic government’s key negotiator Oscar Stenström in place to smooth out that process.
Critics were quick to suggest that the built-in tensions within the new government and its backer SD party will make it difficult to maintain government stability during a four-year term.
Analysts note that the SD could at any time join forces with the Social Democrats and create a majority for any policy in parliament, giving the SD powerful leverage over the new coalition.
But if the SD pushes too hard, the government can back down, let the Social Democrats take power again and deprive the SD of its current influence.
Kristersson, former social minister who became Moderate party leader in 2017, was positive on Friday about the assignment and the agreement reached by the new government.
“I’m not saying this will be easy, but the shared values we have on important issues are a strong foundation to stand on,” he said.