STOCKHOLM: Sweden’s minority, centre-left government looked close to collapse yesterday after just two months in office when a far-right party announced it would vote against the 2015 budget, effectively dooming it to defeat.
The anti-immigration Sweden Democrat party, which holds the balance of power in parliament, said it would support instead an alternative budget proposed by the centre-right Alliance opposition bloc, leaving the government isolated.
Prime Minister Stefan Lofven invited Alliance leaders for immediate talks to resolve the crisis and urged them to live up to election promises not to work with the Sweden Democrats, who want to cut the number of asylum seekers by 90 percent.
“I am ready to cooperate across the party divide,” Lofven told reporters.
However, the leaders of the moderate, centre, Christian Democrat and liberal parties, which make up the Alliance, did not immediately respond to his olive branch and prospects for compromise looked bleak.
The biggest opposition party, the Moderates, said earlier that the Alliance would not withdraw its budget. Economic policy spokeswoman Anna Kinberg Batra said it was not the opposition’s job “to help the government to remain in power”.
Parliament is due to vote on the budget today.
Acting Sweden Democrat leader Mattias Karlsson said his party was flexing its muscles to force a reversal of Sweden’s generous stance on immigration.
“If the Alliance doesn’t change its policies (on immigration), we would try to bring down a government of those parties too,” Karlsson said.
Costs for asylum seekers, including housing, language lessons and welfare allowances, totalled 1.5 percent of the country’s 2013 budget.
REUTERS
