Today in Sweden: A roundup of the latest news on Monday

Senior Moderate politician quits party to join Liberals

Swedish politician Anna Maria Corazza Bildt, who has represented the conservative Moderate Party for decades, will switch parties and campaign for the Liberals in next year’s European election.

“Things are moving in the wrong direction in several European countries. The rights of women and LGBTQI people are restricted as authoritarian populists grow stronger. Sweden is a fantastic, but also quite small, country. We cannot solve the major global problems by ourselves. Therefore, I’m asking Swedish people to put their trust in me as a strong voice for more liberalism in Europe, with and within Sweden’s most EU-friendly party,” she writes in an opinion piece for Expressen.

Corazza Bildt, originally from Italy, represented the Moderates as a member of the European Parliament between 2009 and 2019 and has been a well-known voice within the party. She is married to Carl Bildt, former prime minister and foreign minister for the Moderates.

Swedish vocabulary: to switch – att byta

TBE infections hit record high in Sweden

There’s been a sharp increase in the number of reported cases of tick-borne encephalitis (TBE) in Sweden this year, reports regional public radio broadcaster P4 Sjuhärad. According to the Public Health Agency, 170 cases were confirmed in the month of August alone – a new record.

TBE is a viral brain infection, which can cause a range of symptoms, usually starting with typical flu-like symptoms and then developing to include nausea, dizziness, and in around a third of cases, severe problems. Symptoms usually appear around a week after the bite, but can take longer.

There is no cure, but it can be treated, and there is a vaccination too.

Ticks carrying TBE have historically been concentrated in certain areas in the southern half of the country and the Stockholm archipelago. The disease has however been spreading in recent years, as a result of climate change as mild winters create favourable conditions for ticks.

Swedish vocabulary: a tick – en fästing

Is Erdogan trying to block Sweden’s Nato application – again?

“Sweden must fulfil its duty. It is not enough to prepare the law; it is necessary to implement it,” Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s communications office quoted him as telling a press conference ahead of a UN summit next week, speaking about Sweden’s Nato application.

Turkey has, despite repeated pledges to do so, not yet ratified Sweden’s membership of Nato. Its parliament is expected to vote on the application later this autumn, after returning from recess.

Sweden has attempted to placate Turkey, by among other things amending its terror legislation to make it punishable by law to support a terror organisation, and also lifting an arms embargo it had imposed on Turkey after Erdogan launched a unilateral incursion into northern Syria in 2019.

But Erdogan has seized on Swedish police decisions to, on free speech grounds, allow pro-PKK demonstrations and protests at which anti-Islamic figures have burned pages from the Quran.

Swedish vocabulary: a duty – en plikt

Shots fired at apartment south of Stockholm

Shots were fired at an apartment in Handen, south of Stockholm, in the early hours of Monday.

“There were people in the apartment at the time, but no one was injured,” police press spokesperson Mats Eriksson told the TT newswire at 7.30am, adding that police had not yet made any arrests.

It was on Monday morning unclear whether the shooting in Handen was linked to an ongoing gang conflict, which has seen seven people shot dead in Uppsala and Stockholm since September 7th.

Swedish vocabulary: an apartment – en lägenhet