© REUTERS/ TT News Agency

Swedes woke up to an uncertain political situation on Monday, with no declared winners after a nail-biting election that brought the center-left and center-right political blocs to a deadlock, with neither able to form a majority government. Meanwhile, the far-right, anti-immigration Sweden Democrats declared themselves the “true winners” and kingmakers.

While the Sweden Democrats had hoped to become the second biggest or even the biggest party, they ended up well short of the 25 percent some polls had predicted. Still, there were jubilations among members when preliminary results showed them cementing their position as Sweden’s third party, advancing from just under 13 percent to just under 18 percent. They are clearly a rising force in Swedish politics.

With 28.4 percent of the vote, the Social Democrats fared better than some polls had predicted, though they still performed worse than they have done in over a century. And their coalition partner, the Greens, came dangerously close to falling below the four percent needed to enter parliament. However, Social Democrat leader and (potentially outgoing) prime minister Stefan Löfven refused to heed calls from the opposition to step down on election night.

All in all, just a tenth of a percent now separates the center-left and center-right blocs. While the center-left (the two government parties plus the Left Party) now has one parliamentary seat more than the center-right, the result may shift again on Wednesday after all the early votes and votes cast abroad have been counted and a final result is declared.

Immigration as a Key Issue?

As in other recent elections across Europe – from Italy to Germany – immigration was a key issue in Sweden, with opinion polls in the months running up to the vote showing it to be among the top three concerns for voters, along with healthcare and education. However, on the day of the vote Swedes’ priorities appear to have changed, as immigration dropped to eighth place according to exit polls. The Sweden Democrats, who according to the preliminary results gained 17.6 percent of the vote, were apparently able to capitalize on discontent around mass immigration: in 2015 alone, over 160,000 asylum seekers arrived in Sweden. The Scandinavian nation, with a population of 10 million, took in most migrants per capita of any European country. And in total numbers, only Germany took in more.

During the election campaign, immigration and integration dominated the political debate, and the Sweden Democrats linked those issues to everything ranging from healthcare and schools to crime and the welfare state. The party proposes that Sweden should, at least temporarily, halt the admission of quota refugees and stop granting asylum permits. They also want to offer incentives for repatriation and to limit immigrants’ access to welfare. They say that instead of taking more refugees in, Sweden should instead help those fleeing their home countries by offering assistance in or near the war-torn areas, for instance in the form of aid to organizations operating in refugee camps.

While other parties, too, campaigned on stricter immigration policies, many Swedes apparently felt the Sweden Democrats were more credible in this area. Efforts to win back voters by approaching or adopting the politics of populist parties like the Sweden Democrats are bound to fail, according to Thomas Sommerer, an associate professor in political science at Stockholm University. “When it comes to holding on to voters, tightening one’s migration policy is not a strategy that has worked for the Social Democrats nor for the main opposition party, the Moderates – no matter how hard they tried before the election,” he said.

Neo-Nazi Roots

The Sweden Democrat Party has been around for 30 years now. Among the party’s early founders and members were individuals who had previously been involved with neo-Nazi and racist groups. And as the election drew closer, Swedish media continued to expose current representatives for sharing racist content online, such as anti-Semitic memes and conspiracy theories.

The party’s history prevents the other seven parliamentary parties from considering them as a coalition partner—they made that clear before the election. However, with the center-left and center-right blocs winning around 40 percent of the vote each, Sweden will now need another minority government.

However, being ostracized will not keep the Sweden Democrats from wielding significant influence. Arguably, they also shaped the political debate and set the tone for the entire election, making migration more salient than it otherwise would be. Prime Minister Löfven has called them “a neo-Fascist single-issue party which respects neither people’s differences nor Sweden’s democratic institutions.”

The fact that the Sweden Democrats have the support of 17.6 percent of the Swedes is a sign of the divide between the political class and the wider population, many of whom have abandoned old parties. By casting their vote for the Sweden Democrats, these people expressed that they do want their policies to shape Swedish society.

For the Social Democrats, who have dominated Swedish politics since the 1930s and formed a coalition with the Green Party in 2014, the 2018 general election represents the greatest loss in a century. This downward trend is not unique to the Swedish Social Democrats of course, but has also afflicted their sister parties across the West, as Sommerer pointed out.

”In Sweden, as in Germany, the major political players on the left and right have moved to the political center over the past couple of decades and so, in reality, voters in both countries have been left with few genuine political alternatives,” Sommerer said. “Those who do not appreciate the general shift towards the center—and in Sweden both the Social Democrats and the main opposition, the conservative Moderate Party, have made this shift—now tend to go for smaller parties with clearer ideologies.”

Indeed, smaller parties have gained from this trend, and a record 41 percent of Swedes switched party allegiances in this election, according to exit polls on Sunday. Sweden’s Left Party rose from 5.7 percent in the 2014 election to 7.9 percent in this year’s vote. Other small parties experienced a boost in the final stages of the campaign. The Christian Democrats, for instance, long looked unlikely to make the four-percent electoral threshold but in the end got 6.4 percent of the vote.

Making Inroads

The Sweden Democrats also made significant inroads in traditional Social Democrat strongholds like the northernmost regions of Sweden and in some former industrial towns. A poll in June showed that a quarter of Swedish Trade Union Confederation members planned to vote for the Sweden Democrats. “As the previously dominating parties shrink—in Germany, Sweden and elsewhere—political majorities are becoming a thing of the past,” said Sommerer. “So one is left with two alternatives. One is to form broader coalitions with a larger number of parties—but that also becomes complicated when some alliances are being ruled out in advance. In Sweden, collaboration with the Sweden Democrats was ruled out by the other parties; in Germany the parallel taboo is to collaborate with the Alternative für Deutschland.”

“The other alternative is to collaborate across the political blocs and one change we’re seeing in Germany is that the Green Party is abandoning its old stance of working exclusively with leftist parties. There, the pragmatic sections of the party have become more dominant in recent years and have started collaborating with conservatives. It remains to be seen if the Swedish Greens will follow that lead. I wouldn’t be surprised if some parties are forced to become more flexible here,” said Sommerer.

The day after the election, the bargaining over political power has begun and looks set to continue for some time. The Social Democrats’ group leader Anders Ygeman told Swedish media on Monday that it “could take months” before Sweden has a new government.

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In the wake of Brexit, crowing right-wing populists throughout the continent are calling for the further dismantling of the European project. But they are contending with very different domestic audiences.

© REUTERS/Alessandro Garofalo

France: Fists Are Flying

There was celebration among both right- and left-wing populists when the results of the Brexit referendum were announced. But while the Front de Gauche still hopes for a remodeling of the EU, the Front National is already preparing France’s exit.

Two fists circled by the stars of the EU flag are freeing themselves from their chains – a quickly understood image, accompanied by the caption: “Brexit, and now France!” The result of the British referendum has barely been announced, and the Front National is already presenting its new poster repeating its demand for an exit referendum in its own country.

No wonder: in that far-right party, British refutation of the EU is cause for celebration. Party leader Marine Le Pen triumphantly spoke of a “victory of freedom.” In the week following the referendum, she celebrated in a press marathon, the result of which is supposed to pave the way for a “free and sovereign” France.

No other party followed the campaign as closely as Front National. If Le Pen were to become president, she would want to organize a referendum on France’s EU membership within the first six months of her mandate. She would use the interim to negotiate the country’s retrieval of complete sovereignty from Brussels. In the ideal world of the far-right, France would regain control over its borders and currency – meaning it would leave both Schengen and the eurozone. Moreover, it would reduce its net contribution to the EU budget to zero, and have a free hand in matters of economic policy so that it can engage in “smart protectionism.” National rights would have precedence over community rights. A newly created “Ministry for Sovereignties” would be responsible for the coordination of such negotiations.

It is difficult to assess whether Front National would follow this hard line if it won the national elections. The debate within the party is more divided than it may seem, but the representatives of other policies – such as those advocating remaining in the eurozone – are completely marginalized.

The Front National’s stance on Europe does not yet have majority appeal. According to a study conducted shortly after the British referendum, 45 percent of the French are in favor of remaining in the EU, while 33 percent would like to leave. But even if the supporters of a “Frexit” are still a minority, they are nonetheless a consequential bloc, one which will influence political discussion in the coming months. And as the population remains unenthusiastic about the future of the European project, political parties will utilize these doubts and fears all the more.

When asked about the ideal reaction to Brexit, a clear majority of the French call for the member states to be more independent from the EU; only a quarter of the sampled population wishes for new steps toward further integration. – BY CLAIRE DEMESMAY

The Netherlands: Wilders’ West

The Brexit decision was grist for the Dutch far-right populists’ mill. Is “Nexit” looming? Even if there is at present no legal basis for a referendum, holding one could unleash an uncontrollable political dynamic.

Geert Wilders enjoyed June 24. The far-right Dutch populist tweeted, “Now it’s our turn” right after the results of the British referendum were released to the public; he then repeated his longstanding demand for such a referendum in his own country.

Wilders’ Party for Freedom (PVV) has been the most popular party in Dutch polls for almost a year. A majority of the increasingly euroskeptic Netherlands would like to vote on a potential exit from the EU. Right now, 48 percent of Netherlanders would vote for a “Nexit”, 43 percent against.

This does not mean that anything is pre-determined. The legal basis for Nexit is lacking, for one thing. Referendums can only be held on new laws and contracts – though some are already wondering whether Nexit would not count as a contract modification, which would allow a referendum.

But it is unlikely that Wilders would want to support such a tricky move. What looks more promising is the prospect of a corrective referendum, which would allow the country to address the question of EU membership directly. This possibility is stuck in parliament – the necessary change in the constitution would require a two-thirds majority that the first chamber does not have.

But majorities could change, as there are new legislative elections in March. Most of the campaign will revolve around the country’s relationship with Europe. And the more the British government succeeds in mitigating the direst economic consequences of Brexit, the stronger Wilders’ position will be in the upcoming elections.

Moreover, the central parties are not only under fire from the right: when it comes to Europe, the PVV has an eager comrade-in-arms in the similarly euroskeptic and often populist Socialist Party (SP). Even though the left is not demanding a complete exit from the EU, it does call for a significantly downgraded EU membership.

Neither the SP nor the PVV has made it into either national or local office so far. In 2010 Wilders came rather close to obtaining power, playing a minority role in a coalition of right-wing liberals and Christian Democrats under the current Prime Minister Mark Rutte. Wilders helped Rutte reach a majority, but the structure fell apart in 2012 when an MP left the PVV, saying he could no longer suffer Wilders’ “dictatorial leadership style.” Wilders cut the experiment short, recognizing correctly that he is better in opposition than in government. He has since become even more radical in his assertions.

Politically, a Nexit vote would put the Netherlands in a difficult situation. A pro-European cabinet like the one currently in power could not bring about an exit; it would inevitably crumble. And if he wanted to avoid sizeable economic damage, a Prime Minister Wilders would have to put together a constructive hybrid solution for his country, which could prove challenging.

He claims to have a plan for this, based mostly on reports he ordered from two British institutes. According to these studies, there would be short-term risks, but Nexit would be beneficial in the long run, bringing each Netherlander €9,800 more per year.

The institutes admittedly assumed that the Netherlands would easily succeed in securing advantageous trade deals with the rest of the world, including the EU – even Wilders acknowledges that retaining access to the single market is essential.

Under Wilders’ plan, however, Poland and Romania would maintain freedom of movement, and the Netherlands would still be on the hook for relatively high contributions to the EU. The Hague would have to accept EU laws almost entirely, without the ability to shape them in Brussels. If the guilder were re-introduced as an independent currency, it would, according to Wilders, entail costs for two years but then settle down; but he also thinks it would be possible to “follow the euro,” meaning the guilder would become a pseudo-euro. In terms of security policy, Wilders’ motto is “Out of Schengen, thick borders.” Muslims would stay out of the country. Police and law enforcement officers would cooperate outside the framework of the EU.

Does this look like a promising future for the Netherlands? The other parties will band together to prevent Wilders from becoming prime minister. The question is whether that will be enough: an EU referendum, even one lost in advance, could trigger a dynamic beyond control. – BY THOMAS KIRCHNER

Northern Europe: Playing with Fire, Using a Small Flame

Precautionary Brexit tourism among the Finns, disunity within the Danish People’s Party, a clearer anti-Europe course for the Swedish Democrats. As soon as the populists of Northern Europe are in power, they fall apart on EU questions.

Resistance against the EU rescue fund, along with criticism of the common currency and Brussels in general, have helped the Perussuomalaiset party (the Finns, formerly known as the True Finns) grow.

They first made it into government in the elections of April 2015, winning almost 18 percent of the vote. But only a few months passed before the party abandoned one of its main demands and voted for a new aid package for Greece in the summer 2015 for the sake of peace within the coalition.

The Finns have had to learn how to build voter support when they are shaping policies from within government rather than rejecting policies from outside. In the meantime, the party’s approval ratings have fallen drastically; at the moment, only 8 percent of voters say that they would vote for them.

In fact, many Northern European right-wing populists seem willing to compromise as soon as they reach power. After the Brexit vote, calls for EU exit referenda were understandably muted – it is one thing when such demands come from the opposition, and another entirely when they stand a realistic chance of success.

For a long time now, Scandinavia has been a paragon of social democracy. Those times are over. It is now the Northern European countries – with the exception of Iceland –where right-wing populists are enjoying some of their most dramatic victories, often earlier than in other countries.

In (non-EU) Norway, the right – the Fremskrittspartiet, or Progress Party – has shown itself willing to negotiate on some of its core issues: now it takes the stance that the country’s robust financial cushion should be tapped only conservatively to avoid destabilizing the economy. In Denmark, the Danish People’s Party (DF) was not ready to take on the responsibility of leading the government, even though it has represented the second strongest faction in parliament since June 2015. Instead, it has attempted to steer the ruling conservative government under Lars Lokke Rasmussen.

Morten Messerschmidt is one of the DF’s most important representatives on EU questions. For seven years now he has pulled off a tricky balancing act: he has simultaneously been a part of the EU system as a parliamentary representative, while also one of its greatest – and most popular – critics. He received over 465,000 votes in the European elections two years ago, more than any Danish candidate had ever achieved.

This means that Messerschmidt’s voice has a particular weight when it comes to deciding whether the Danes should demand a referendum following the British example. Yet Messerschmidt originally expressed a wish that the British majority would vote against Brexit; now he merely advises to “keep calm.” Conversely, the EU political speaker of the party – the far less influential Kenneth Kristensen Berth – has already declared that he would like a referendum to take place in Denmark if Britain succeeds in securing a good deal with the EU.

In Sweden, the Left Party (Vänsterpartiet), which barely attained 6 percent of the vote in the 2014 elections, demands that Sweden’s EU membership put up for debate again; and the right Sweden Democrats (Sverigedemokraterna, 13 percent) want an exit referendum. Both are part of the opposition; a red-green minority government is in power.

The Sweden Democrats reject EU membership, but they have never made European questions a major topic; they have instead traditionally focused more on policies toward foreigners and domestic security. In Sweden, there is a clear majority in favor of remaining in the EU – unlike in Finland, Norway, and Denmark, working with the right-wing populists on the national level is currently unthinkable. The probability that the Sweden Democrats would have to shift away from anti-European discourse to reach power is thus remarkably low. – BY CLEMENS BOMSDORF

Read more in the Berlin Policy Journal App – September/October 2016 issue.

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© REUTERS/Wolfgang Rattay

My foreign correspondent’s new year’s resolution for 2016 – to travel less and live more – lasted all of two days. Last Sunday I found myself on a plane to Copenhagen to witness the new ID checks put in place on the border between Denmark and Sweden at midnight. Two days later I was in Cologne in the wake of the shocking physical and sexual attacks on women welcoming the new year.

Different countries, related problems: both further dashed hopes that Europe will be able to defuse the growing frustrations and fears of ordinary people in what have become extraordinary times.

On a sunny but freezing morning in Copenhagen I boarded what used to be the direct train to Malmö in Sweden. It now stopped at Copenhagen Airport. When we arrived, we headed up to the station and down to another platform, separated from the Copenhagen train by a provisional wire fence. On the frigid platform of Copenhagen Airport, Danish rail (DSB) has set up 34 security queues manned by 150 private security staff to photograph and store the IDs of around 18,000 people who use this line daily. No ID, no travel.

While I wondered about the legal implications of a private company policing my right to travel in the EU, the train began the second leg of the journey to Malmö. A Swedish woman sitting opposite me was furious at the “stupidity” of measures she says will just inconvenience ordinary people who live in Malmö but work in Copenhagen. About 8,000 commute between the two countries. On my return journey, I got off again at Copenhagen Airport station and met one.

Susan Flygenring, 37, hurtled down the travelator to catch the waiting train to Malmö. Last week she would have made it, but the ID scan robbed her of a few precious seconds; the doors slammed and the train left without her. “This is horrible, I feel like crying, I really needed to get that train to pick up my children,” said Flygenring.

For her and thousands of others, the Øresund bridge was a lifeline and a promise: allowing her to juggle work and family in two different European countries. But the growing tensions migration has put on EU free movement mean, for her, uncertainty about her way of life. “We used to be so free going back and forth between Sweden and Denmark, now we need a passport,” she said. “This isn’t what we were promised.”

On the surface it seems as if Sweden is acting because of an EU failure, but the opposite is the case. This is a failure of national governments meeting in Brussels to do what the EU was set up to do, and what their voters have elected them to do: to solve problems together that cannot be solved alone.

Sweden has stepped up border checks because Stockholm says it cannot absorb another 160,000 asylum seekers, as it did last year, while its neighbors sit on their hands rather than reach a robust, realistic, and functioning burden-sharing agreement. Reimposing ID checks between Sweden and Denmark is a massive blow here, ending half a century of free travel in the so-called Nordic Passport union – a forerunner to the later Schengen zone that offers EU citizens free travel through much of the continent.

It took just 12 hours for Denmark to respond: anxious not to become a dead-end for Sweden-bound asylum seekers, Copenhagen imposed ID spot checks on its border with Germany at noon on Monday and will continue them until next Thursday, with a possibility of extending them or stepping them up to full border controls.

As I left Denmark, I wondered whether January 4, 2016 will be identified later as the day Schengen – and with it the EU – began to unravel. Rather than fly back to Berlin, I took a detour to Cologne. Usually on January 6 the city celebrates its three most famous – if deceased – residents, the Bible’s three wise men. But this time, Cologne was a city of angry, fearful women.

Days earlier, scores of them had been attacked, robbed, and sexually assaulted by a gang of up to 1,000 drunken men gathered between the train station and the cathedral. Police say the attackers were of North African appearance; many were known to authorities. “Suddenly I felt a hand on my bum, on my breasts, I was grabbed everywhere, it was horrific,” one woman named Katia told the Express newspaper. “I was desperate, it was like running the gauntlet. Over the space of 200 meters, I think I must have been touched 100 times.”

Evelin, 24, was with her friends in the square between the train station and Cologne Cathedral at the same time. “I had a knee-length skirt on, suddenly I felt a hand on my bottom and under my skirt,” she said. “I turned around and stared into a sea of grinning faces.”

The reports were terrible, but the police response was worse. First the police issued a statement on January 1 noting a “relaxed atmosphere” in the city the night before. They only changed their mind when confronted with a tsunami of outrage on social media at that gross misrepresentation. The number of criminal complaints filed has now reached 516 – including two complaints of rape. Yet even after they were caught in a lie, the Cologne police made a bad situation worse by denying they were overwhelmed or ill-prepared on New Year’s Eve.

A leaked police report last Thursday suggested otherwise, complaining of officers frustrated at being unable to offer effective protection because they were “at their limit.” Federal police who patrol the area around Cologne train station admitted to me that they are desperately understaffed because around half of their number have been deployed to Germany’s borders.

If people don’t feel safe, they look for someone to blame. Leaving Cologne, I listened to far-right pipers’ demand for “cleaner, safer cities” being shouted at far-left groups. The knot in my stomach tightened.

For months I have been waiting for a long-overdue terrorist attack to poison Germany’s already wavering public opinion of the refugee crisis. But after the Munich terror alerts on New Year’s Eve, the Cologne attacks may achieve the same effect: push insecure and angry people into the arms of populists who accuse the state of being a soft touch with migrants, and the media of airbrushing crimes carried out by non-nationals.

It’s a similar picture in Sweden and Denmark, where mainstream political failures in this time of unprecedented challenge have seen a drift to populist alternatives. These populists are more interested in stoking up hate against immigrants and damaging European integration than helping their vulnerable neighbors – but history shows that this is something insecure people usually only realize when it’s too late.

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