Swedish news, week 37

Last updated on 14 Sep 2025

Political news

The upcoming budget

The government continues to put out spoilers (I mean press releases) about the budget that's about to be presented towards the end of September. Did you know that vattkoppor (chickenpox) is a virus that's currently not included in the standard vaccination program in Sweden? If it hits a preschool or school it's hard to catch in time because the incubation period is so long. One of the proposals in the upcoming budget is to add the vaccine to the standard program starting in 2027 as well as offer it to everyone under the age of 18 at that point in time.

Another point in the budget is about taking care of the Swedish nature, like the national reserves/parks, hiking trails, and beaches. The government announced it's investing 100 million SEK into this. It had previously reduced the budget for this area by pretty much same amount. Back in 2024, STF (The Swedish Tourist Association) calculated that the budget has decreased by 46% in comparison to 2017.

85 million SEK are earmarked to decrease the spreading of PFAS, and 25 million for fighting the invasive species. Back in 2023 the government reduced the latter from 55 million to 0.

1.59 billion SEK will be dedicated to mental health care, addiction treatment, and suicide prevention. The majority of that will go towards adult psychiatry, expanding the care capacity which is currently under severe strain.

972 million SEK will go towards prevention of crime among the youth. The press release calls out such measures as: developing more ways for the social services to intervene despite not having consent, expanding collaboration between schools and social services, more support from the social services to the youth that wants to leave the criminal life, creating more SiS (special facilities long away from home for the youth at risk), and increased opportunities to do body searches and room searches at SiS.

524 million SEK will be allocated to the support of vocational education with the goal of helping people out of unemployment (which continues to be high). The etableringsjobben program will be extended, but first something needs to be hashed out with the EU.

7 billion SEK goes towards lower taxes for the employers who hire young people (18–23 years old), lower taxes for small businesses, and various simplifications in the rules.

The income tax for Swedes living abroad goes down from 25% to 20%.

The debate

The parliament has started the new year with a debate among the party leaders, and guess what, there's an English translation for the entire three hours.

At the fika, you might hear about...

The new Health Minister

The old Health Minister left the post, a new one was being introduced at a press conference and fainted. The media and the social media commented on how the Deputy PM reacted quickly and helped, while the Prime Minister looked awkward in the background. A bit later the news cycle moved on to the fact that the new Health Minister had expressed herself critically towards the right to abortion back in 2015. Now she's being summoned to a parliamentary committee to answer questions about that.

Data leak at the provider for the municipal HR systems

Personal data of a million Swedish residents has been published on Darknet, so if you've been somehow in touch with an HR system of your municipality and someone calls you and knows a lot about you, it's probably a scam attempt.

Ban on mobile phones in schools

Next school year it will be forbidden for students to have their mobile phones on them during the entire school day. School principals can make local exceptions.