Because Sweden is currently governed by a caretaker government, it cannot take the political initiatives needed to extend the temporary tax cuts that expire in the fall.
SD therefore wants the Riksdag (the Swedish parliament) to act to extend the tax cuts.
"We hope to get a majority to support maintaining the tax cuts and keeping prices low. The alternative is to accept that fuel prices will rise sharply," says Henrik Vinge (SD).
“Reckless handling”
The proposal has now been tabled in the Riksdag’s Finance Committee and will be considered later. The Moderates have not yet taken a position.
“Our approach is that the Swedish people should have low living costs, but we will look at the proposal now,” says Edward Riedl (M).
“We will also see whether there is support across the bloc, since the four blue-yellow parties no longer have a majority.”
Mikael Damberg (S), the committee’s new chairman, thinks the whole process is frivolous.
“The Tidö parties chose to present tax cuts that would only last through the election. So it feels like they haven’t had a long-term plan for how this should be handled,” says Damberg.
He does not want to say whether S will support the initiative.
Requires EU approval
The first tax cut expired on October 1, and the second expires on December 1, meaning Sweden is now below the EU minimum level. Together, the tax cuts amount to around 4 kronor (about $0.40) per liter for gasoline and just over 3 kronor (about $0.30) per liter for diesel.
If no decision is made to extend them, the tax will automatically rise again on October 1 and December 1, respectively.
SD estimates that extending the first tax cut from October 1 until the end of the year will cost the treasury almost 1 billion kronor (about $95 million). Extending the second tax cut will cost around 1.5 billion kronor (about $143 million) for December.
But it is not certain that the European Commission will allow Sweden to remain below the EU minimum level. This depends primarily on how energy prices develop and what happens in the conflict in the Middle East.
SD wants the Riksdag to give the caretaker government a mandate to apply to the European Commission for an extension.
