What's the situation in parliament?
After the far-right Sweden Democrats failed to respect the parliament's near-century old convention of pairing, or kvittning, the agreement between the parties is no longer functioning. This means that all 349 MPs will need to turn up to vote in parliament for their vote to be counted – even if they are ill or absent on other business.
This means that the government risks not only losing the vote of the two Sweden Democrat independent MPs, but perhaps also the vote of as many as four Liberal MPs who plan to leave politics at the end of this parliamentary term due to their party's willingness to join a government that includes the Sweden Democrats.
In the vote on transitional arrangement for citizenship, all four of these Liberal MPs were kept away using the pairing system. Now they have to vote and in early May they refused to say if they would toe the party line.
All it takes is for two of those six MPs to vote with the opposition against the government for the government to lose a vote.
That means that on each of the voting days left in this parliament, the government is at risk of being defeated.
There are 13 voting days left before the election: May 20th, May 26th, May 27th, June 3rd, June 4th, June 8th, June 9th, June 10th, June 11th, June 15th, June 16th, June 17th, and August 13th.
The August 13th voting day, as well as a day for debates on August 12th, were added to the parliament's schedule in March when the government recalled MPs early, after realising that it had too many bills to pass for it to be able to complete its business as normal in June.
There are two big days when the government is at the highest risk of a defeat: June 9th and June 15th.
However, a source at one of the parties supporting the government told The Local that they were confident that all of the government's bills will pass – at least on immigration – as the Social Democrats appeared reluctant to defeat them.
The motions the Social Democrats had filed so far, they said, were mostly framed as tillkännagivande – parliamentary statements which are not binding on the government even if backed by a majority of MPs.
These are much weaker than motions to reject bills, or yrkande om avslag, which stop bills coming into force if they win a majority vote.
The MP The Local spoke to said he believed that the Social Democrats were reluctant to defeat the government on any immigration proposal, as this risked making immigration an issue in the coming election campaign, which they feared would lose them votes.
Another MP with one of the smaller opposition parties, however, said it was standard practice to submit motions framed as tillkännagivande.
Which laws could the government conceivably lose a vote on?
Migration laws:
June 9th: Abolishing permanent residency for asylum migrants
This is one of the government's most controversial proposals. Among other things, it would mean that people who got residency on the basis of asylum or other forms of protection will no longer be eligible for permanent residency. People with residency permits awarded on the basis of work and their dependents will not be affected.
The Social Democrats have submitted a motion criticising this, arguing the law has been poorly drawn up and will make it more difficult for those who want to apply for Swedish citizenship.
"You can't just phase out permanent residence permits without having an idea of how you can then become a Swedish citizen," the party's migration spokesperson, Ida Karkiainen, told Dagens Nyheter.
The Social Democrats, she said, want to abolish permanent residence permits at a later stage, but argue a functioning transitional solution is needed first.
"Permanent residency permits can be phased out in the long term, but not in the way the government is doing now," Karkiainen said.
However, the motion the Social Democrats submitted to the Social Insurance Committee on May 19th is a framed as a tillkännagivande, meaning that even if a majority of MPs backed it, the law could still come into force.
Annika Hirvonen, immigration spokesperson for the Green Party, acknowledged this, telling The Local that her hope was that the Social Democrats would "join with our proposal to reject it", and that two or more Liberal MPs or former Sweden Democrats would then vote with them.
"It might happen. We had a similar situation with the transition rules. My intention is to do what I can to have them join us," she said.
June 15th: Refusing or retracting residency permit for 'poor conduct'
On June 15th, parliament is set to debate and vote on a proposal to empower the Migration Agency to deny or revoke residency permits in the case where the applicant or holder demonstrates a "flawed way of life", for example by committing crimes, abusing the welfare system or not paying debts.
The Council on Legislation, which vets Sweden's proposed laws from a legal point of view, has complained that what constitutes "poor conduct" or bristande vandel is not made sufficiently clear in the law.
As a result, the Social Democrats said they were opposed to the law.
"The Council on Legislation believes that this area deserves a more thorough and democratically anchored review," Karkiainen told Dagens Nyheter.
But again, the Social Democrats' motion is framed as a non-binding tillkännagivande, not a motion to reject.
The Centre Party's migration spokesperson, Niels Paarup-Petersen, told The Local that in his opinion the poor conduct and abolition of permanent resdidency were the migration proposals most likely to attract the support of the four Liberal MPs.
"I don't know if there are any others that might evoke the Liberal members to join ranks," he said.
Crime
June 15th: Cutting the age of criminal responsibility to 13
This law, Stricter rules for young offenders, is opposed by all four opposition parties. The law would, among other things, temporarily reduce the age of criminal responsibility from 16 to 13, so that 13-year-olds can be sent to prison.
This time, the Social Democrats have actually filed a motion to reject at least a part of the bill.
The party's two-part reservation, or counter-motion, first calls for the part of the bill reducing the criminal age to 13 to be rejected outright. The second part of their motion is a tillkännagivande, calling on government to put a new version of the law to parliament setting the age of criminal responsibility at 14.
The Green Party and Centre Party have also filed reservations calling for the part of the part of the bill reducing the criminal age to 13 to be rejected. The Left Party has filed a reservation calling for the bill to be rejected in its entirety.
The question is whether any of the four Liberal MPs or two former-SD independents would be willing to back the opposition on this.
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