May give you more expensive utility bills
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If you want to find out news about the EU from a Swedish perspective, the blog Brors & Elvis is a good tip. It is run by political bricklayers Henrik Brors and Ylva Elvis Nilsson.
This week they wrote that Sweden’s energy and industry minister Ebba Busch has been truant for the past 1.5 years from the meetings where the EU’s energy ministers meet and discuss energy issues.
Since Sweden released the EU presidency club in July 2023, the KD leader has been absent from all occasions, with the exception of a meeting in December.
Our electricity bills
Other member states’ energy ministers have been on site and, among other things, discussed major investments in electricity grids and solar energy.
These are important questions about how the European countries will get safe and cheap energy. In the end, it is about Swedish consumers’ electricity bills.
But the Swedish energy minister has instead sent his state secretary or officials from the department.
At the meeting in March, Ebba Busch stayed home to attend the press conference for the spring budget. In April, she prioritized attending a meeting on foreign trade for invited Swedish entrepreneurs.
The writer Ylva Elvis Nilsson believes that it “damages Sweden’s image” to send civil servants to represent Sweden in heavy EU discussions.
Crisis at home
So why is Sweden’s energy minister truant from these important meetings?
One explanation could be that Ebba Busch is increasingly desperately trying to be seen at home. In terms of opinion, the Christian Democrats are doing abysmally.
In the current voter survey conducted by Indikator Opinion on behalf of Sveriges Radio, KD is up 0.5 percentage points. But the party still lands at 2.9 percent, well below the Riksdag barrier.
The Liberals have also been swimming among the fishermen for a long time. Since the election in the fall of 2022, they have not been above the magical four percent barrier in a single one of Indikator Opinion’s measurements.
Unique low support
The fact is that only the Moderates in the current government would have entered the Riksdag if there were elections today. And they are at 20 percent.
The government which is now stressing an authoritarian policy of austerity thus has a uniquely low voter support for it. In total, almost half of Swedes think that the government behaves badly. One reason for that is, according to SR commentator Fredrik Furtenbach, the recent care debate with care queues and layoffs.
It is still a long way to the next parliamentary election. But we have an EU election on June 9. The three governing parties have every reason to fear the election results. And considering how they manage relations in the EU, at least one of the parties should be rejected by the voters.
