Mikael Damberg is critical of the government continuing to borrow money, including for electricity subsidies and reduced fuel taxes.
"We have a prime minister and finance minister who have wasted the Swedish people's money," he says.
He also thinks the government is too optimistic in its economic forecasts. The government's forecast, issued in March, expects growth of 2.8 percent for the Swedish economy in 2026.
"That's a fairly high growth rate to expect."
"I wouldn't be surprised if reality catches up with the government," says Damberg.
"A proper crisis budget"
The Center Party's economic policy spokesperson, Martin Ådahl, shares Damberg's view that the growth forecast is overly optimistic.
"It appears to be a completely unrealistic forecast," he says.
Ådahl calls the spring budget "more of an election budget than a real spring budget."
He says it lacks initiatives to counteract the high unemployment and believes that the 1.4 billion kronor spent on repatriation grants should have gone to jobs and schools instead.
"Why they don't choose to reprioritize from completely unnecessary efforts into what Sweden needs is incomprehensible to us," he says.
The Left Party's economic policy spokesperson Ida Gabrielsson says that a government "of course" cannot influence what happens in the outside world.
But what you can do as a government is to manage a crisis, and this government has completely failed in its crisis management, she says.
"Short-term gasoline populism"
V believes that the government has not supported the most needy households sufficiently, but has instead "spread" the measures widely.
"Now we are in the middle of an energy crisis with households already under extreme pressure," she says.
The Green Party criticizes the government's reduction in fuel taxes:
"We spend 16 times more on subsidizing fossil fuels than on helping Swedes switch to electric cars. It is also crystal clear that investments in public transport are being made," says the party's economic policy spokesperson Janine Alm Ericson, continuing:
The government is meeting the oil crisis with short-term gasoline populism and leading the Swedish people straight into a dead end.
Within two weeks at the latest, the opposition parties will present their alternatives to the government's spring budget.
