In late August, mining giant LKAB announced that around 6,000 more people in Kiruna must move due to the mining.
Prior to the expanded city relocation, the municipality is publishing a list of requirements that includes everything from competency supply to new areas and infrastructure being fully built before the move. A solution for the railway must be decided as soon as possible since the Swedish Transport Administration and LKAB have not determined who will be responsible for a new railway and railway station.
Economy and land availability
Niklas Sirén, vice chairman of the municipal board, says that a solution to the issue of land availability is a prerequisite for a move to take place at all.
The state owns about 80 percent of the municipality's area. The municipality owns 1.5 per mille. We have no possibility of solving that issue without the state making necessary priorities, he says.
The economy is also central. According to the municipal council, the state must take all expected and unexpected costs.
”The state takes the profit”
Whether you want to or not, regardless of all good intentions, when you entered into the first part of the city relocation that we are approaching at least a rounding of, it is so that it is the municipality and its citizens who have had to take the risk and the state takes the profit, says Sirén.
He believes that there should be a real chance for the state to meet the requirements since the inhabitants are moving to make way for the state's mine. The faster the state solves the land issue in Kiruna – where national interests are stacked on top of each other – the more time there is to solve, for example, fully built areas and infrastructure.
