In 1975, 421 rapes were reported to the police; in 2014, it was 6,620. That is an increase of 1,472%.
When former prime minister Fredrik Reinfeldt in the defining moments of the election campaign of 2014 urged the public to open “their hearts” to more asylum seekers it proved that Sweden was different, or as some might put it ‘weird’.
Few conservative leaders would have done what Reinfeldt did at the time. There has been a strong consensus in Sweden among the established parties about the benefits of immigration. The kind of anti-immigrant rhetoric that has become norm in many other European countries has not filtered into the mainstream press.
The Sweden Democrats are excluded from influence in parliament through a deal Social Democratic prime minister Stefan Löfven did with the centre right over Christmas. The deal saved his government and has therefore been controversial within the centre right: “Why are we saving a Social Democratic government?” many conservatives have been asking themselves during the last six months. “Is it really that important to keep the Sweden Democrats away from influence?”
Reinfeldt’s successor as leader of the opposition, Anna Kinberg Batra, has however defended the deal very firmly.
The internal conflicts about how to handle the fact that around 18 per cent of the Swedish electorate say they would be voting for the Sweden Democrats are however not limited to the opposition.
Stefan Löfven is governing together with the Greens and the Social Democrats and their junior coalition partner tend to have different views about how to deal with the challenges posed by around 70,000 asylum seekers coming to Sweden every year. The Social Democratic finance ministry has proposed lower benefits for asylum seekers in order to keep costs in check. This was blocked by the Greens. The same thing happened with proposals for things like a ‘safe country of origin’ list, to speed up the denial of applications from people coming from countries not considered dangerous enough. This kind of tension within the government will probably not go away.
Meanwhile Löfven has been criticised for being invisible. Nobody can tell what his political project is. The question “Who is in charge?” is often asked about the government. And more worryingly: the country.
Löfven was an outsider; a well-liked and respected union man. Unfortunately he still struggles with how to be a politician.
The easiest way to fix his image problem would probably be to simply start governing. After all the strength of Swedish social democracy has always been its ability to take action. Not its ability to talk.
Sweden’s commitment to taking its responsibility for asylum seekers in Europe is important and admirable. It will however also cost money. Most of these costs are today carried by local authorities. Local politicians have demanded help from the central government for years and finally the government has opened negotiations with the opposition on the issue. They have also committed to more state money going to local authorities with a large number of refugees.
Another big problem is that many municipalities in the heavily decentralised Swedish system simply refuse to take any asylum seekers. These tend to be wealthy municipalities run by the centre right. The effect of this is a heavy concentration of refugees in certain areas of Sweden, in many cases with poorer residents and more social problems. Something needs to be done about this.
Sweden is also worse than comparative countries at getting immigrants and refugees into the labour market.
This is a huge problem and would require a lot of Social Democratic soul searching in order to fix. It can however be done.