In the course of the first cabinet of Ingvar Carlsson, Sweden — as well as most other western countries in the late 80s — enjoyed a period of economic expansion. The cabinet undertook a reform of the Swedish tax system, which meant that more income tax went directly to the municipalities, instead of the state. The reform also meant that a flat capital gains tax was implemented. During these years Sweden saw two widely publicised political scandals; the Ebbe Carlsson affair and the Bofors scandal.
Politics
After the assassination of prime minister Olof Palme on 28 February 1986, the second cabinet of Palme continued to serve as an interim cabinet (sv. expeditionsregering) led by Deputy Prime Minister Ingvar Carlsson until 12 March 1986. The cabinet of Carlsson acceded formally that day, after Carlsson had been elected prime minister by the parliament with 178 votes for and 0 against. 159 members refrained from voting, and 12 were not present.
Apart from the new prime minister, the first cabinet of Carlsson was almost identical with the second cabinet of Palme. However the Minister for Energy Affairs, also acceded Carlsson's former office as Minister of the Environment
Between 14 and 17 April 1986 the Prime Minister made a visit to Moscow. The purpose of the visit was to discuss the ongoing border dispute between Sweden and Soviet in the Baltic Sea. The exact stretch of the border had been a matter of disagreement since the late 1960s. Both parties wanted to draw the border through the middle of the Baltic Sea, however they did not agree on what constituted the middle. They disputed area consisted of 13 500km².
Sweden wanted to draw the border in a middle, calculated between Gotland and the Baltic states, while Soviet wanted to the count from the Swedish mainland. The Soviet proposal would have meant a borderline stretching just east of Gotland.
In January 1988, the Premier of the Soviet Union, Nikolai Ryzhkov made an official visit to Stockholm. Among the issues discussed was the border dispute. It was decided that Sweden were to be given seventy-five percents of the disputed area, while the Soviet Union received the remaining twenty-five percents. Furthermore, the two parties agree on a transition of fishing regulations for the coming twenty years.
Import of agricultural products had already been prohibited on 1 January 1986. The Prime Minister, however, wanted to wait on the decision of the United Nations Security Council. On 12 March 1987 the decision to implement a complete trade embargo towards South Africa and Namibia, starting on 1 July the same year, was taken.
In May 1988, Carlsson traveled to the capitols of several of the member states of the European Economic Community (EEC). The Prime Minister visited Madrid, Brussels, Bonn and London. The purpose of the visits was to explain Sweden's attitude towards the EEC. Carlsson line was that Sweden was to collaborate with the EEC in all areas except, foreign policy, where Sweden's policy of neutrality hindered it from participate. Therefore, Sweden could not become a member of the EEC.
In November the following year Sten Andersson visited the Baltic states, where he declared that the Baltic states were not occupied by the Soviet Union. For this statement Andersson received severe criticism in Sweden. In his memoirs the minister defends his statement, writing that the Baltic states were annexed which, according to Public international law, is not the same thing as occupation.
Several widely publicised political scandals took place during 1987. In March the Indian newspapers the Indian Express and The Hindu accused the then Indian Prime MinisterRajiv Gandhi and several others of receiving kickbacks from the Swedish weapons producer Bofors for winning a bid to supply India's 155mm field howitzer. The scale of the corruption was far worse than any that India had seen before, and directly led to the defeat of Gandhi's ruling Indian National Congress party in the November 1989 general elections.[2] The affair became known as the Bofors scandal.
During the night between 5 and 6 October Stig Bergling, a former officer in the Swedish Security Service who had been convicted of espionage on behalf of the Soviet Union, managed to escape while on furlough. After receiving heavy criticism, the Minister of Justice Sten Wickbom resigned on 19 October. During the year the much troubled police investigation of the assassination of Olof Palme lingered on. Due to failure to present results the Stockholm county administrative chief of police Hans Holmér was forced to resign.
On 1 June 1988 the Ebbe Carlsson affair started, when the newspaper Expressen revealed that the publisher Ebbe Carlsson had been given access to top secret documents concerning the Palme investigation. The new Minister of Justice Anna-Greta Leijon, who had authorised Ebbe Carlsson's involvement in the investigation, resigned on 7 June.
Energy and Environment policy
Shortly before Christmas 1985, the Minister of the Environment and Energy AffairsBirgitta Dahl, pledged to present a plan to phase out nuclear power in Sweden by 1995. After the 1986 Chernobyl accident in Ukraine, an expert committee was formed by the government. The committee was to investigate the security of nuclear energy. To form a broad consensus regarding the future of nuclear energy in Sweden, the cabinet invited the other political parties for discussion. On 12 February 1987 the discussions failed. The following day Dahl announced that the government intended to start the phase out between 1990 and 1997. In the beginning of 1987 they presented a Motion (parliamentary procedure) to close the first nuclear reactor sometime in the period 1993–1995 and the second during 1994–1996.
In 1988 the Moderate Party proposed a national Carbon dioxide limit. Which meant that nuclear power plants could not be replaced by fossil fuel power plants. The same year the cabinet revised their nuclear proposition; now the first reactor was to be closed by 1995, and the second by 1996. The plants where reactors were to be closed were Barsebäck and Ringhals. Dahl declared that the decision was "irreversible." But after debates in parliament the Liberal People's Party and the Centre Party, together with members of the social democratic party, reverted the decision in 1991.
Social policy
During February 1986 the cabinet held negotiations about with the conservative opposition about social policy. The Social Democratic Party wanted to raise child allowances and extend parental allowance. By 28 February the Moderate Party, the Centre Party, and the Liberal People's Party had left the negotiations. The Centre Party later returned to negotiations, and with support from them and the Left Party the proposition passed. The new law[3] meant that child allowance was raised from 400 SEK/month to 485 SEK/month.
Before the general election in 1988, the three conservative parties agree on a proposal to implement a taxed health care allowance on 15 000 SEK per child and year. Cost of childcare up to the same amount would be deductible in the declaration. In total the proposal would have costed 8 billion Swedish crowns. The social democrats instead wanted to extend parental allowance during a period of three years, from nine to eight months. The Social Democrat's proposal were to cost 5,5 billions. The Social Democratic Party lost three seats in the election. The communistic Left Party gained one seat. The Green Party passed the election threshold for the first time, receiving 5.5 percent of the votes and thus twenty seats in parliament. The conservative parties together lost nineteen seats.
Economic policy
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Resignation of the cabinet
Labor market debate, 1990
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Mayadas, M. (1999). How the Bofors Affair Transformed India, 1989–1999. Lancer Publishing. ISBN1-897829-64-7.
Notes
↑ The Swedish Instrument of Government, which is one out of four parts of the Constitution of Sweden, states in Chapter 6, Art. 7, that “If the Prime Minister is discharged or dies, the Speaker shall discharge the other ministers.”
Sven Olof Joachim Palme was a Swedish politician and statesman who served as Prime Minister of Sweden from 1969 to 1976 and 1982 to 1986. Palme led the Swedish Social Democratic Party from 1969 until his assassination in 1986.
Gösta Ingvar Carlsson is a Swedish politician who twice served as Prime Minister of Sweden, first from 1986 to 1991 and again from 1994 to 1996. He was leader of the Swedish Social Democratic Party from 1986 to 1996. He is best known for leading Sweden into the European Union.
Tage Fritjof Erlander was a Swedish politician and statesman who served as the prime minister of Sweden and leader of the Social Democratic Party from 1946 to 1969. Previously, he served as minister of education from 1945 to 1946, and was a member of the Riksdag from 1932 to 1973. During his premiership, Sweden developed into one of the world's most advanced welfare states, with the "Swedish Model" at the peak of its acclaim and notoriety. His uninterrupted tenure of 23 years as head of the government is the longest ever in Sweden and in any modern Western democracy.
Rut Birgitta Dahl is a Swedish former politician of the Social Democratic Party. Dahl was a Member of Parliament from 1969 to 2002. She served as Minister for Energy from 1982 to 1990, as Minister for the Environment from 1986 to 1991, and as Speaker of the Parliament from 1994 to 2002. She was the chairman of the Swedish section of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) between 2005 and 2011.
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The Ebbe Carlsson affair was a major political scandal in Sweden occurring during mid-1988. The affair came to public knowledge on 1 June 1988, when the evening newspaper Expressen revealed that Ebbe Carlsson, a journalist and publisher and former secretary at the Swedish government, was carrying out an independent and illegal investigation into the assassination of prime minister Olof Palme, secretly supported by the minister for justice Anna-Greta Leijon.
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