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Daily Mirror
16-05-2025
- Politics
- Daily Mirror
Top diplomat 'found dead' after home raided by cops over spy allegations
A Swedish diplomat who was arrested on suspicion of espionage has been "found dead, according to officials. Swedish police raided the home of the diplomat on Sunday and later arrested him on suspicion of espionage. Media outlets in the country reported he was a top diplomat who had been stationed at numerous embassies around the globe. The man was found dead on Thursday following his arrest. Maria Malmer Stenergard, the Moderate Party's Minister of Foreign Affairs, told the local Aftonbladet outlet: "I have been notified about the sad news that an employee at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has passed away. My thoughts are with the employee's family, friends and colleagues." When pressed about the man's death, a spokesperson for the Swedish Security Service told the outlet it could neither confirm nor deny the information. The statement about the man's death had reportedly been circulated within the ministry. Unfortunately, we can confirm that an employee at the Foreign Service has passed away," the ministry said. "Out of consideration for the relatives, we will not go into any further details." The Swedish secret service has not revealed the particulars of the espionage allegations. The alleged crimes were said to have happened between May 1 and 11. Police arrested the suspect on Monday, although he was released. The man's lawyer Anton Strand said following the arrest: "He denies that he has done anything criminal or anything wrong at all."
Express Tribune
28-04-2025
- Politics
- Express Tribune
Johan Pehrson, Sweden's Liberal party leader, to step down
Sweden's Liberal Party leader Johan Pehrson will resign from his post, a party spokesperson confirmed on Monday. Pehrson assumed the party leadership in April 2022 following Nyamko Sabuni's resignation and was confirmed as leader later that year. Under his guidance, the Liberals joined a centre-right coalition government led by the Moderate Party, supported by the Sweden Democrats—a partnership that sparked internal party tensions and led to high-profile resignations. In a statement on X (formerly Twitter), Pehrson expressed pride in revitalising the Liberals' relevance within Swedish politics and contributing to reforms aimed at enhancing education, security, and climate policy. Tack för alla glada tillrop - och även motsatsen genom åren. Efter i stort sett trettio år av demokratisk värnplikt är det dags för något annat. Heja Sverige. Rösta på Liberalerna. — Johan Pehrson (@JohanPehrson) April 28, 2025 It remains unclear whether Pehrson will continue to serve as Sweden's Minister of Education in the minority coalition government, which is led by the Moderate Party and supported by the anti-immigration Sweden Democrats. Pehrson's tenure as Minister for Education, commencing in September 2024, followed his role as Minister for Employment and Integration. His leadership has been marked by efforts to reform Sweden's free school system and initiatives to safeguard academic freedom. The announcement comes as the Liberal Party faces declining public support. A recent opinion poll conducted by public broadcaster SVT earlier this month showed the party polling at just 2.8%. This marks a significant fall from the 4.6% share it secured during the 2022 general election. Sweden is scheduled to hold its next general election in September 2026, with the opposition Social Democrats currently leading in public support. Further details regarding Pehrson's future within the government are expected in the coming days.
Russia Today
27-04-2025
- Politics
- Russia Today
NATO state could seize Russian Orthodox church — media
Sweden could forcibly acquire a Russian Orthodox church and move it away from a key airport over concerns that it could be used by Moscow for spying purposes, the national public television network SVT has reported. The Swedish Moderate Party, which is a member of the ruling coalition, hopes to move the Icon of Our Lady of Kazan Church out of the city of Vasteras, claiming that it poses a security threat over its alleged 'connections to the Russian state,' the broadcaster said in an article on Friday. The church sits near Stockholm Vasteras Airport, a water treatment plant and the facilities of energy companies. 'In the world we live in now, we need to make sure that it is moved to another place,' Moderate Party politician Elisabeth Unell argued. Sweden, which joined NATO in 2024, citing concerns over the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, cannot allow the presence of 'a foreign power' near a key airport, Unell told SVT. The municipal board in Vasteras confirmed to the broadcaster that the Moderate Party proposal has been formally received and will be looked into. If approved, the plan to buy out the church at a price of up to 30% above market value will be forwarded to the Swedish government for a final decision. Last year, Politico reported that the Swedish Security Service, Sapo, accused the church of serving as a 'platform to conduct intelligence activities in Sweden.' The agency claimed, without providing evidence, that church representatives 'have had contacts' with Russian intelligence agencies. Church officials have dismissed all accusations, insisting their activities are purely religious. They have also denied receiving any funding from Moscow. The permit to construct the church was issued in 2017 and raised no security objections. Government funding for the parish was withdrawn in May 2024, following consultations with Sapo. Last year, another Nordic country, Norway, increased scrutiny of the Russian Orthodox Church's activities after allegations surfaced that some priests had collaborated with the Russian embassy 'in one way or another.' Speaking to RIA Novosti, Archpriest Nikolay Lishchenyuk, deputy chairman of the Department for External Church Relations of the Russian Orthodox Church, called the espionage accusations 'absurd and slanderous.'
New York Times
28-03-2025
- Politics
- New York Times
The Problem With Sweden Is Sweden
This essay is part of The Great Migration, a series by Lydia Polgreen exploring how people are moving around the world today. On Aug. 12, 2004, celebratory headlines festooned the pages of Swedish newspapers, hailing a huge milestone: On that day a baby would be born as the nine millionth Swede. After years of fretting over declining birthrates, a modest increase in babies born and, crucially, robust migration had pushed that sprawling but lightly populated nation over a longed-for threshold. Twenty years later, almost exactly to the day, the Swedish government trumpeted a very different achievement: More people were leaving Sweden than were migrating to it. By the end of the year, a country that had long celebrated its status as a refuge for people fleeing war and repression was touting the fact that fewer people had been granted asylum in Sweden than in any year since comparable records have been kept. To the government, led by the center-right Moderate Party and backed by the hard-line anti-migrant Sweden Democrats, this retrenchment was nothing but a good thing. The celebration completed a stunning reversal. Sweden was for decades one of the most open and welcoming nations in the world, to the point where its foreign-born population stands at about 20 percent. Now it is among the most restrictive. By hardening asylum requirements and creating an unfriendly atmosphere for new arrivals, it has dramatically stemmed the flow of migrants. Arrivals have fallen year over year. Not satisfied, the government has cooked up new schemes to induce migrants already in the country to leave, offering a $34,000 payment per adult. In much less than a generation, Sweden has gone from safe haven to heavily fortified citadel. In this, Sweden offers some an example to emulate. As wealthy countries across the globe turn against migration and ascendant right-wing parties push harsh restrictions, Sweden stands out as a country that has gone hard and fast to keep migrants out — first under a center-left government and then a more right-leaning one. It is a case study of backlash, where the fantasy of draconian border restrictions has been enacted. The story, on its face, may seem a simple one: After being overwhelmed by an influx of asylum seekers from Syria and other war-tossed Middle Eastern countries in 2015, the country sought to assert control over its borders and its population. Yet when I traveled to the country earlier this year, I found something much more complicated. There is certainly antipathy toward migrants: In a survey last month, 73 percent of Swedish respondents said migration levels over the past decade were too high. But that's of a piece with a society ill at ease with itself. Beset by metastasizing gang violence, stubborn unemployment and strain on its vaunted social welfare system, the country is rife with discontent — a distemper shared by foreign- and native-born alike. The problem with Sweden, it seems, is not migrants. It's Sweden itself. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Local Sweden
19-03-2025
- Business
- Local Sweden
Is Sweden's government ready to bring in 'a modern war economy'?
The overarching theme of the ruling Moderate Party's annual congress for local politicians over the weekend was defence, and more specifically how to pay for it. "It is sometimes said that freedom is priceless, and that's true," Sweden's prime minister Ulf Kristersson declared in his speech launching the congress on Friday. "But it is equally true that freedom comes at a price." He made no mention of US President Donald Trump's embrace of Russia and its president, Vladimir Putin. But the 143 billion kronor the government had only a few months ago decided to pump into defence in 2025 ‒ double what it spent only a couple of years back ‒ would now "not be enough", he said. He had, he announced, instructed Finance Minister Elisabeth Svantesson and Defence Minister Pål Jonsson to prepare for a much bigger increase in defence spending in time for the extra amendment budget in the spring. The next day, Svantesson went further still in preparing people for the coming bill to be paid. "What I say might sound a little drastic, but I see a modern war economy ahead of me," she said in her speech. They're not alone. German MPs on Tuesday voted to exempt defence spending from the country's strict debt rules and to set up a 500-billion-euro fund for infrastructure investments, a move incoming Chancellor Frederik Merz described as "nothing less than the first major step towards a new European defence community". Denmark's government, meanwhile, has allocated 50 billion kroner to a new defence fund . Advertisement The jury is out, though, on whether Sweden's government is willing to back its tough rhetoric on defence spending with unpopular decisions. "Stronger defence is going to require some prioritising," Kristersson warned, but then immediately promised that the increase would not be funded either by "damaging taxes" or by cuts to healthcare, schools and elderly care. Svantesson, meanwhile, backtracked on her 'war economy' rhetoric, joking that no one should expect WW2-style ration cards or to be forced to drink 'coffee substitute', promising instead a streamlining of government spending, with "fewer press officers". She also promised an increase in borrowing. "We are going to need to borrow money to quickly reach the level of spending required." The opposition Social Democrats were willing to go further. The party's leader, Magdalena Andersson, and its finance spokesperson, Mikael Damberg, preempted the Moderates' conference, calling on Thursday for a 250 billion kronor defence fund. The fund would be debt-financed and would help cover defence spending over the next ten years. "This needs to happen at a furious tempo," Andersson said. Advertisement Unlike the Moderates, the Social Democrats want defence spending to be partly funded by higher taxes, with the party repeating calls for a beredskapsskatt or 'preparedness tax', which would be levied on top earners. Both the former communist Left Party and left-wingers within the Social Democrats welcomed what they saw as Andersson's abandonment of the balanced budget target she agreed with the government parties last year. The Left Party's leader Nooshi Dadgostar claimed that Andersson's proposal essentially spelled the end of the target, and opened up instead to the deficit financing the Left Party has long called for. "This is about loaning to invest," she said. "That's the whole point of taking away the brakes on investment and that is what the Social Democrats are now proposing," she said. Daniel Suhonen, part of the Reformisterna left-wing group of Social Democrats, also congratulated Andersson, writing on X that it was "a milestone" in the party's development, as did Lisa Nåbo, chair of the party's youth wing, who said that the decision to use deficit financing would allow Sweden to catch up with long-delayed but necessary investment in infrastructure. Advertisement Andersson, however, denied that she was abandoning her commitment to balanced budgets. "Our judgement is that it should be plus and minus in the government finances in the long term. That is a good thing that gives us strong finances," she said. "But exceptional times require exceptional measures and we are in an exceptionally dangerous security situation right now." These are the first moves of what promises to be the big political debate in Sweden, as in other European countries, over the next few years: should defence spending be funded by cuts to welfare and public services, hikes to taxes, or ‒ most likely ‒ both? It remains to be seen how bold each side is willing to be. Advertisement What else has been happening in Swedish politics? Centre party finance spokesperson in the ring for leadership Martin Ådahl, the Centre Party's finance spokesperson, has declared himself open to joining the race to become the party's next leader, while stopping just short of throwing his hat into the ring. Ådahl said the party should refuse to choose sides between the two blocks before the votes are counted in the 2026 election, and should stick with a promise not to join a government dependent on the Sweden Democrats. Instead, he said, the party should focus on jobs, enterprise, spurring growth and investing in roads, railways, healthcare, schools, and the green transition. Ådahl said he couldn't yet confirm if he would be a contender, but was "honoured that he had received the question from members". The MP Elisabeth Thand Ringqvist and the head of the farmers' union, Anna-Karin Hatt, have also refused to rule themselves out. Environment minister snubs climate council report release Sweden's environment minister Romina Pourmokhtari has decided not to attend the release of the Swedish Climate Policy Council's annual report on whether the government is doing enough to put the country on track to meet its climate goals at a press conference on Thursday. Daniel Helldén, joint leader of the Green Party described her no-show as " otroligt anmärkningsvärt", or literally "unbelievably worthy of note". This may sound mild when translated into English but in Swedish it's relatively harsh. "This shows that the government really isn't prioritising the climate issue. I've never heard anything like it."
