Bad EU decision may prompt government crisis

Bad EU decision may prompt government crisis

The country's leadership could face collapse if the Swedish government supports the European Union's Pact on Migration and Asylum.

POLITICS APRIL 26. 2023 14:25

The Pact on Migration and Asylum continues to be a weekly topic of discussion within the European Union. One small yet significant aspect of this pact involves the mandatory distribution of arriving migrants among member states. In 2020, Marine Le Pen, the parliamentary leader of the French National Rally, labelled the EU’s migration and asylum pact as „suicide for Europe” and cautioned that it could lead to 75 million more migrants entering Europe.

The controversial pact is inching closer to implementation, however, numerous conservative and populist parties throughout Europe, including the Sweden Democrats (SD), are employing every political tactic at their disposal to prevent its adoption.

The EU’s Migration Pact was approved by the European Parliament last week with a clear majority of 420 votes to 130. MEP Charlie Weimers, an SD politician, cautioned that the pact could compel member states to accept migrants against their wishes. This would be a particularly delicate issue for countries like Hungary, the Czech Republic, and Poland, which have all opposed mandatory migrant quotas.

Swedish Democrats are now threatening to withdraw their support from the conservative government coalition if Sweden adopts the Migration Pact. Although the Swedish Democrats are officially not part of the coalition, the government relies on their votes in adopting laws, making the party vital in keeping the conservatives in power.

Following the vote in the European Parliament, Sweden, along with all other EU countries, will likely still have to adopt the pact in the European Council.

„The government must stop the Migration Pact drawn up by Swedish moderate Tomas Tobe in the European Parliament. If not, I find it hard to see how the basis for our cooperation can be maintained,” SD politician Mattias Karlsson wrote in a post on social media.

SD party President Jimmie Akesson also reacted on Twitter. He wrote that his party stands for an independent and very strict Swedish migration policy. He added that the EU’s pact represents the opposite in practice. He wrote: „We will not accept that Swedish voters’ power over migration policy is handed to politicians and bureaucrats in Brussels. Period.”

Of course, the European Parliament does not have the final say on the controversial new law, as the European Commission and the European Council must also approve the pact, but Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has already indicated that the EC is likely to do so.

POLITICS

Tags:

eu, migration, sweden