POLITICS WEEKLY NO. 88 WEEK OF OCTOBER 12, 2015 Politics Weekly by Mundus International The week ahead ✦ The Foreign Minister, Margot Wallström (S), attends the Foreign Affairs Council in Brussels today. The Foreign Ministers will discuss the latest developments in Syria, CALENDAR external aspects of the migration policy and recent political developments in Libya. The ministers will also discuss the partnership between the EU and the members of the NATIONAL African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) group of states. Click here for agenda highlights. The Swedish government’s annotated agenda can be downloaded here. 12th: Sverige Tillsammans, Stockholm • ✦ The conference ”Sverige Tillsammans” takes place today. The Prime Minister has invited municipalities, authorities, businesses, trade unions and civil society for a • 12th: Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences discussion on how to improve conditions for those newly arrived in the country. The event will be broadcast live here and the programme can be found here. • 13th: Meeting of the Nordic and Baltic Foreign Affairs Committees, the Riksdag ✦ The Riksbank’s Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, commonly referred to as the Nobel Prize in Economics, will be announced today. • 14th: Party leader debate, the Riksdag ✦ Interpellation debates will be held in the Riksdag on Tuesday. The Defence Minister, Peter Hultqvist (S), will answer a question by Anna Kinberg Batra (M) about Sweden’s • 15th: Q&A session, the Riksdag cooperation with NATO and one about managing Sweden’s total defence. The Minister for Finance, Magdalena Andersson (S), will answer an interpellation about implications of • 15th-18th: Moderate Party congress, Karlstad government policy and one about the increased marginal tax. ✦ On Tuesday, the Minister for Energy, Ibrahim Baylan (S), will meet the EU Commission INTERNATIONAL Vice-President for the Energy Union, Maroš Šefčovič. • 12th: Foreign Affairs Council, Brussels ✦ The Nordic and Baltic parliamentary committees on Foreign Affairs will meet at the Riksdag on 13 October. The situation in Ukraine and the developments in Syria are two • 13th: General Affairs Council, Brussels issues on the agenda. ✦ A debate between leaders of the political parties will be held in the Riksdag on 14 • 14th-15th: Barents Euro-Arctic Council October. The debate will start at 9 a.m. and will be broadcast live here. ministerial meeting, Oulu ✦ Carola Lemne, CEO of Swedish Enterprise, and Karl-Petter Thorwaldsson, Chairman of LO, are among the speakers at a seminar entitled ”How will the TTIP agreement affect • 14th: Seminar: TTIP – what’s in it for workers workers and employers in the EU?” The seminar will be held at the European Parliament and employers?, Brussels on 14 October. Click here to read the press release. ✦ The Minister for Strategy, Future Issues and Nordic cooperation, Kristina Persson (S), • 15th-16th: European Council meeting, Brussels attends the Barents Euro-Arctic Council ministerial meeting in Oulu, Finland, from 14-15 October. The programme can be downloaded here. • 16th-18th: Arctic Circle Assembly, Reykjavik ✦ The Minister for Defence, Peter Hultqvist (S), will meet with his Estonian • 17th-21st: Inter-Parliamentary Union assembly, counterpart, Hannes Hanso, on Tuesday. Geneva ✦ On Thursday, Margot Wallström, will answer an interpellation about the actions of the Turkish government and one interpellation by Amineh Kakabaveh (V) containing several questions about Turkey. The Minister for Defence, Peter Hultqvist, will answer an interpellation regarding offsets and JAS Gripen. ✦ From 15-16 October, the Prime Minister will attend the European Council in Brussels. EU leaders are expected to focus on migration, including preparing for the Valletta Summit in November. Also on the agenda is the Economic and Monetary Union and the plans for the (in/out) referendum in the UK. Click here for the programme and agenda highlights. ✦ The Moderate Party gathers for a national congress in Karlstad from 15-18 October. Click here for information about the congress. ✦ The Speaker of the Riksdag, Urban Ahlin, will receive the High Commissioner on National Minorities of the OSCE, Astrid Thors, on Thursday. ✦ The 2015 Assembly of the Arctic Circle will take place in Reykjavik from 16-18 October. Click here for the program. ✦A Riksdag delegation will participate in the Inter-Parliamentary Union assembly in Geneva from 17-21 October. Read more here. POLITICS WEEKLY BY MUNDUS INTERNATIONAL WWW.MUNDUS-INTERNATIONAL.COM POLITICS POLITICS WEEKLY WEEKLY NO. NO. 8 18 WEEK OF OCTOBER 12, JULY 2015 29 from the Riksdag, the political parties, and the News Government and its agencies The end of the December Agreement On Friday, delegates at the Christian Democrats’ national meeting (Riksting) voted 151 to 103 to advise the party board to consider phasing out the December Agreement. Following the vote, the other three opposition signatories to the December Agreement said the pact is over. Both the Liberals and the Christian Democrats said on Friday they would vote for their separate budgets. Meanwhile, the Sweden Democrats announced they will call for a vote of no confidence in the Riksdag this week in an attempt to oust the Minister for Finance Minister, Magdalena Andersson (S). The Riksbank's business survey: The Riksbank published it’s September Business Survey on 9 October. The survey shows companies more pessimistic that, despite the economy growing at a reasonable rate, companies are generally more pessimistic about future economic developments. Specifically, it is the slowdown in growth markets, low commodity prices and tumbling investment in the energy sector, that are worrying the export industry. Manufacturing companies have noticed for some time that demand in China is not growing as strongly as before and demand continues to be weak in Brazil and Russia. Generally, companies feel increasingly secure about growth in domestic demand. The assessment of the construction, retail and consumer-related service companies is that the risks of deterioration in the economic activity have diminished. Opinions are particularly positive in the construction sector, where demand continues to rise and the rate at which new homes are being built is very high. The Business Survey states that there is an ongoing discussion between companies and banks about negative deposit rates. In general, companies do not need to pay to keep liquid assets in the bank but if the repo rate is cut even more, they feel that there is a major risk of the banks in Sweden starting to charge for deposits. Companies say that they are analysing how to optimise their cash flows so that they can avoid such costs in the future. Click here to download the business survey. Almost 8,900 asylum seekers arrived last Last week 8,899 people applied for asylum in Sweden. On Thursday alone, 1,609 persons week applied for asylum. Of the 8,899 were 2,025 unaccompanied minors, mainly from Afghanistan and Syria. 2,990 people were from Syria and 2,313 from Afghanistan. Read the press release from the Migration Agency here. Government presents measures for On Friday, the government presented a number of measures aimed at finding refugees accommodation for the unprecedented number of refugees arriving in Sweden. The government has instructed the county administrative boards to make an inventory of all facilities in the country that can be used for temporary accommodation. Possible sites could include camp sites, industrial buildings, apartments and sport halls. The work will be coordinated by the Governor of Norrbotten County, Sven-Erik Österberg. The inventory is to be reported by 22 October at the latest. Furthermore, the government said the Swedish Migration Agency may erect tents, if necessary. To help municipalities house unaccompanied refugee minors, the government will introduce a new form of accommodation, called "support housing”. At the press conference, the Minister for Justice and Migration, Morgan Johansson (S), said the government will speed up passing legislation that would force municipalities to take refugees. He also said that the Police should intensify their work to deport refugees who have been denied asylum. The press release and a webcast of the press conference can be found here. NIER presents report on wage formation The National Institute of Economic Research (Konjunkturinstitutet, NIER) has presented its annual report on wage formation. The report Wage Formation in Sweden 2015 presents the economic background to wage formation and the coming round of collective bargaining. The next major round of collective bargaining - with collective agreements covering around 3 million workers in Sweden - will be renegotiated in the first half of 2016. The NIER report concludes that the participation rate and the employment rate are high in Sweden relative to other countries, but that unemployment is also high. ”The social partners can normally hasten a return to lower unemployment through wage formation with support from monetary policy, but monetary policy cannot be made much more expansionary in the current situation”, NIER writes. Very low pay increases will therefore not lead to lower unemployment. Changes to minimum wages and active labour market policies could, however, permanently reduce unemployment. Click here to download the report (in Swedish) and here for the English summary. POLITICS WEEKLY BY MUNDUS INTERNATIONAL WWW.MUNDUS-INTERNATIONAL.COM POLITICSINVESTERARNYHETSBREV WEEKLY NO. 88 NR 3 WEEK OF OCTOBER HÖST 12,