Swedish Government Falls
by Tyler Durden
ZeroHedge.com
12/03/2014
An hour ago, Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Loefven failed to get enough government votes to support his latest budget, despite threats he may resign if the budget did not win majority support. This follows after Sweden’s Democrats, the third-largest party, “plunged the Nordic nation into a crisis” yesterday after vowing to oppose any government budget that promoted immigration. Loefven, 57, in late night talks with the four-party Alliance opposition was then unable to reach any agreement on a way forward for his budget of tax increases and higher welfare spending.
Cited by Bloomberg, Loefven said that “There was no will to have a dialog on the budget issue” – which sounds about as “compromising” as Barack Obama. He may now go down in history as Sweden’s shortest-serving premier in about 80 years, having taken control in September elections. The coalition’s proposal was rejected in a formal vote today in parliament, as the Sweden Democrats voted for the Alliance budget.
The former union boss led the Social Democrats back into power by ousting Fredrik Reinfeldt’s center-right coalition in September elections. The premier said last night he will also explore the option of resubmitting his budget to the finance committee in parliament. Another option is for snap elections to be called for the first time since 1958.
While for now Loefven has not resigned, the latter option is precisely what he picked. Follow the key BBG headlines from a just concluded press briefing by the prime minister:
SWEDISH PM LOEFVEN SAYS SWEDEN IN SERIOUS SITUATION
SWEDISH PM LOEFVEN SAYS WON’T ACCEPT NEW POLITICAL SITUATION
SWEDISH PRIME MINISTER LOEFVEN CALLS FOR NEW ELECTION IN 2015
SWEDISH PM SAYS NEW ELECTION TO BE HELD ON MARCH 22
SWEDISH GOVT: WILL NEVER ALLOW SWEDEN DEMS TO DICTATE RULES
SWEDISH PM LOEFVEN WON’T SEEK ANY FURTHER TALKS WITH OPPOSITION
The Rest…HERE
