Today in Sweden: A roundup of the latest news on Tuesday
Turkey's demands, a free school defeat, a big wolf cull, and the arrival of the midnight sun: find out what's going on in Sweden with The Local's roundup.
Swedish PM admits defeat in proposal to change rules for free schools
Sweden's prime minister, Magdalena Andersson, has admitted that her government's proposal to change the rules for free schools does not have enough support among MPs to get passed in parliament.
The new rules, would, among other things, have channeled more money to municipal schools per pupil to compensate them for having to offer places to the broadest range of pupils, and changed the queueing system.
"I have a majority of the Swedish people on my side in this issue, but not a majority in the parliament," Andersson said, in a speech to a congress of Sweden's main teachers' union.
Swedish Vocab: vinstdrivna – for-profit
Turkeys publishes five demands on Sweden for Nato membership
Turkey's government has published a list of five demands it wants Sweden to fulfill before it will vote in favour of the country's accession to Nato.
“Under the collective security principle of Nato, Turkey expects concrete assurances from Sweden, which supports terrorist organisations," the government wrote in a post in English on its website.
The post refers to the PKK/PYD, conflating the PYD, the party which runs the Kurdish region in northern Syria, with the PKK, which is designated a terrorist organisation by the EU and the US.
It highlights the $367m Sweden has promised in support of the PYD, accused Sweden of supplying military equipment, particularly anti-tanks and drones, to Kurdish forces in northern Syria, criticises the arms embargo Sweden imposed on Turkey in 2019, and reiterates a call made in 2017 for Sweden to extradite "terrorists" linked to PKK/PYD and FETO (Fethullahist Terrorist Organisation), the Turkish government's designation for the Gülen movement.
Swedish Vocab: försäkringar – assurances
Klarna to lay off hundreds of workers as it braces for downturn
The Swedish payments giant Klarna is to lay off as many as 700 staff as it prepares for tougher economic conditions, the company's co-founder and chief executive Sebastian Siemiatkowski has said in a speech to employees.
"When we set our goals for 2022 in the autumn, it was a very different world from the one we had today," the news site Breakit has revealed in a story.
According to Klarna, it intends to lay off about 10 percent of its roughly 5,000 staff. According to the Dagens Industri newspaper, around 700 employees will lose their jobs.
Swedish Vocab: att skära ner – to cut back
Midnight sun to begin in northern Sweden
The sun rose this morning in Karesuando, Sweden's most northerly settlement, and will not now set until mid-July. The midnight sun first arrived at the Swedish border on Saturday and will now move south towards the Arctic Circle until the summer solstice on June 21st, with Kiruna getting midnight sun on May 28th, and Haparanda on June 16th.
Swedish Vocab: dygnet runt – day and night, around the clock
Swedish government plans major wolf cull
Sweden's government is planning an unusually large cull of the country's wolf population this year, with the country's agriculture minister, Anna-Caren Sätherberg, telling Swedish state broadcaster SVT that the current population of around 400 is too many.
"We see that the wolf population is growing every year and we want to make sure with this cull that we can get down to the goal set by parliament," she said. "Right now we can see that the conflict level has increased and acceptance has fallen."
In 2013, the parliament ruled that Sweden should have at least 170-270 wolves to meet the demands of an EU directive.
Swedish vocab: vargstammen – the wolf population
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Swedish PM admits defeat in proposal to change rules for free schools
Sweden's prime minister, Magdalena Andersson, has admitted that her government's proposal to change the rules for free schools does not have enough support among MPs to get passed in parliament.
The new rules, would, among other things, have channeled more money to municipal schools per pupil to compensate them for having to offer places to the broadest range of pupils, and changed the queueing system.
"I have a majority of the Swedish people on my side in this issue, but not a majority in the parliament," Andersson said, in a speech to a congress of Sweden's main teachers' union.
Swedish Vocab: vinstdrivna – for-profit
Turkeys publishes five demands on Sweden for Nato membership
Turkey's government has published a list of five demands it wants Sweden to fulfill before it will vote in favour of the country's accession to Nato.
“Under the collective security principle of Nato, Turkey expects concrete assurances from Sweden, which supports terrorist organisations," the government wrote in a post in English on its website.
The post refers to the PKK/PYD, conflating the PYD, the party which runs the Kurdish region in northern Syria, with the PKK, which is designated a terrorist organisation by the EU and the US.
It highlights the $367m Sweden has promised in support of the PYD, accused Sweden of supplying military equipment, particularly anti-tanks and drones, to Kurdish forces in northern Syria, criticises the arms embargo Sweden imposed on Turkey in 2019, and reiterates a call made in 2017 for Sweden to extradite "terrorists" linked to PKK/PYD and FETO (Fethullahist Terrorist Organisation), the Turkish government's designation for the Gülen movement.
Swedish Vocab: försäkringar – assurances
Klarna to lay off hundreds of workers as it braces for downturn
The Swedish payments giant Klarna is to lay off as many as 700 staff as it prepares for tougher economic conditions, the company's co-founder and chief executive Sebastian Siemiatkowski has said in a speech to employees.
"When we set our goals for 2022 in the autumn, it was a very different world from the one we had today," the news site Breakit has revealed in a story.
According to Klarna, it intends to lay off about 10 percent of its roughly 5,000 staff. According to the Dagens Industri newspaper, around 700 employees will lose their jobs.
Swedish Vocab: att skära ner – to cut back
Midnight sun to begin in northern Sweden
The sun rose this morning in Karesuando, Sweden's most northerly settlement, and will not now set until mid-July. The midnight sun first arrived at the Swedish border on Saturday and will now move south towards the Arctic Circle until the summer solstice on June 21st, with Kiruna getting midnight sun on May 28th, and Haparanda on June 16th.
Swedish Vocab: dygnet runt – day and night, around the clock
Swedish government plans major wolf cull
Swedish vocab: vargstammen – the wolf population
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