Extra supplementary budget for 2025 - Capital contribution to Apotek Produktion & Laboratorier AB
Translated from Swedish by AI; the translation may contain errors. The Swedish text is the original.
Summary AI, written in advance
The debate concerned a capital injection for Apotek Produktion & Laboratorier AB to strengthen pharmaceutical preparedness. S argued that the market has failed to take responsibility after the pharmacy monopoly was deregulated 1 2 3 and that they are now taking responsibility by proposing a capital injection and 300 state pharmacies 1 3. SD argued that it is a social democratic failure that Sweden lacked preparedness during the pandemic 4 5 and that a state ownership is needed for procurement 5. SD did not consider that the situation is due to market failure after the deregulation 6. M emphasized that the government has expanded the company's social mission to secure the basic protection through the redistribution of existing funds 7.
Written by AI in advance and may contain errors. The numbers lead to the speech a statement builds on; check against the text below.
Eva Lindh (S)
Madam Speaker! We find ourselves in the most serious security policy situation since the Second World War. It requires major efforts from our society. Building a stronger military defense is a matter of course for many. Building up the civil defense to protect our Swedish society in the event of a crisis or war should be just as much of a matter of course.
Strengthening our common resilience will require resources, and building our society stronger plays an absolutely decisive role. The underfunding of healthcare and its operations that we are now seeing affects Sweden's population in the form of poorer care and furthermore risks jeopardizing our preparedness.
Sweden should instead be in full swing with building up a better pharmaceutical and healthcare preparedness that functions in peacetime and that prepares for crisis or war. Today, the system for pharmaceutical supply is based on only having what is needed and no more. Even in normal times, shortages and backorders occur painfully often.
Access to medicines is a crucial factor for being able to provide good healthcare in the event of a crisis or war. We know that we do not have the preparedness that we should have, even in peacetime. It became clear during the pandemic.
Once upon a time, we actually built up a preparedness for pharmaceuticals and medical technology equipment. But certain parties in the Riksdag voted away the pharmacy monopoly. Several warned then, precisely for this, that someone must be held responsible for building up a preparedness for times of crisis or war. The market would solve it, was the answer then. The responsibility disappeared.
When the pharmacy market was deregulated, the overall responsibility for the pharmaceutical supply that Apoteket AB had also during crises and high alert disappeared. It would sort itself out, said the responsible minister. Now we have seen how it went. It is yet another example of market failure.
That is the situation we ended up in, and therefore something must be done now. In our Social Democratic budget, there were resources for the work of improving pharmaceutical preparedness, building up pharmaceutical stocks, and ensuring that the part of the distribution chain that the regions are responsible for functions in times of crisis. We also propose 300 state pharmacies to secure the pharmaceutical supply throughout the country.
Well, now we stand here. Today we are ready to make the decision that we are debating here and now: that the Riksdag makes it possible with a capital contribution to Apotek Produktion & Laboratorier AB.
Sweden needs to be able to manufacture and ensure the availability of particularly critical medicines during peacetime, crises, high alert, and war by purchasing an operation that manufactures certain particularly critical medicines that we need. That is good. Therefore, we stand behind the proposal that has now been presented.
David Perez (SD)
Madam Speaker! We begin the day in a very special way when we hear that the problems within Swedish healthcare are market failures, and the access to medicines is also the market's fault. Everything was gold and green forests when the Social Democrats were in power.
If one makes a quick rough calculation of who has held power over the last 45 years, it appears that the Socialdemokraterna have held power in 31 of the last 45 years.
I was previously a healthcare politician. I saw how the pandemic hit our country. I saw how poorly equipped Regionsverige was and, not least, the Social Democrats who governed many of these regions. That the country was not sufficiently well-equipped to withstand war and crisis is something for which the Social Democrats in particular bear the responsibility.
We have previously had emergency stockpiles, as the member pointed out, which have been dismantled with great confidence. We have phased out production of important medicines and other healthcare materials to China, Asia, and other countries. We previously had war enterprises. A very large company, Mölnlycke, manufactured a large part of, among other things, the face masks. That is no longer done in Sweden.
Madam Speaker! We see a consequence. They are trying to point to market failures. I would say that it is a Social Democratic failure that the healthcare system looks the way it does today. How does the member view that?
Eva Lindh (S)
Madam Speaker! I thank Member David Perez for raising this question. It is important that we discuss the conditions for healthcare and also the preparedness, as we are doing here and now.
It is easy to always blame someone else. What happened was that the decision to remove the pharmacy monopoly was made when we did not have a majority in the chamber. We can have discussions about whether it was good or not. We disagree on that.
One of the things that was warned against was that no one was taking, and would take, responsibility for pharmaceutical preparedness and medical technology preparedness. That was warned against. But no one did anything, instead, the market was supposed to solve it.
Now we saw how it went. The market has not taken the responsibility. Therefore, we now stand in this situation. Finland took after Sweden as we had it once upon a time. Now we need to look at how we can strengthen the pharmaceutical preparedness in Sweden. This is a step. We think that is good. But more needs to be done to strengthen the civil defense.
I hear quite often from Sweden Democrat politicians that healthcare was bad before too. We had reasons to ensure that healthcare is strengthened. But we do not do that by weakening it further, as the SD-led government does. That is exactly what it does. It weakens healthcare further. It is a problem for healthcare here and now. It is also a problem in times of possible crisis or war.
David Perez (SD)
Madam Speaker! Thank you, Member, for the answer!
We hear once again that it is the pharmacy monopoly that is the problem here. Of course, there are other actors who also have an obligation to have preparedness. This applies in particular to our hospitals.
The Speaker mentioned, among other things, that Finland is following in Sweden's footsteps. We remember very well how we in Sweden during the pandemic envied Finland's preparedness, not least when it came to face masks, gas masks, and medicines.
Finland has an institution and a preparedness that we lacked during the pandemic. It was one of the reasons why Swedish crisis management during the pandemic was so deficient.
We did not even have a principal that could negotiate medicines in a proper way, instead it was done by individual regions. From my home region Region Uppsala, one had to fly to China to procure face masks, other necessary equipment for medical needs and products.
Is this how we are supposed to have it? Should individual regions compete with each other and drive up prices and other things? No, we need a state ownership. It is also an issue that we are pushing for.
When it comes to crisis management, it has been deficient. There, one must point to the party that has held power for the most years, and that is the Social Democrats. I would say, before one looks at this as a market failure or a failure from the Moderate Party or any other party, that the one who bears the blame for Sweden not being sufficiently prepared for crisis, for war, and for the pandemic is the Social Democrats and no one else.
Eva Lindh (S)
Madam Speaker! It is obvious that the Sweden Democrats and the Social Democrats do not share either policies for solutions or a description of reality. It became a problem when no one took responsibility. We see that as a market failure.
We have also taken initiatives in this spring budget and also previously to handle this. But we see that measures were needed to strengthen the preparedness, the pharmaceutical preparedness, the medical technology equipment, and the healthcare. Then we take our responsibility. We provide resources to healthcare because it requires it today and in times of crisis or war, both to build up a strong healthcare during so-called peacetime and to strengthen the preparedness if it should happen that we end up in war or in crisis again. We take our responsibility. We see the reality; we do not turn a blind eye to it. We see that the market did not manage this and that we need to make political interventions to strengthen it.
Today we make a decision on what we believe is a good direction to make it possible to buy up an operation so that one can handle a certain part of the pharmaceutical preparedness that we need. We think this is a good way. But we regret that we were not where we should have been during the covid-19 pandemic, that is, where Finland was when they imitated what we had before the abolition of the pharmacy monopoly.
David Perez (SD)
Madam Speaker! I would say that after this exchange of remarks, it is clear that Sweden needs to upgrade its preparedness when it comes to war, crisis, and pandemics.
It is also a step in the decision that we are expected to make today – 700 million kronor shall go to Apotek Produktion & Laboratorier AB so that they can ensure that Swedish preparedness in the production of helpful and necessary medicines increases. There is no other political stance here. All parties in the Swedish Riksdag agree that this is an important and good thing.
Now, the fact is that this is a consequence of the rather problematic situation we were in during the covid-19 pandemic, where Sweden lacked the preparedness to adequately handle a crisis in the way we saw in our Nordic neighboring countries.
I am not of the opinion that this is a market failure because we removed the pharmacy monopoly. I would rather say that many out there are satisfied with how the pharmacies function because the opening hours for these have actually increased after the monopoly was abolished.
Of course, there are different views on this, but I am glad that this government – eagerly encouraged by the Sverigedemokraterna – is making important decisions to ensure that we do not end up in the situation we were in during the covid-19 pandemic.
I vote in favor of the Finance Committee's proposal for a decision.
Ida Drougge (M)
Madam Speaker! The Government has proposed that we should redistribute resources within the state budget, i.e., that we should move funds from one budget area to another. We want to do this to make it possible for the state-owned company Apotek Produktion & Laboratorier AB to purchase manufacturing industry.
In 2023, the government decided to expand Apotek Produktion & Laboratorier AB's social mission. Regardless of what my Social Democratic colleague tried to give the impression of here, it is this government and no other that has made the decision that the state-owned company shall have a larger social mission than it has had historically.
For a long time, there has been a mandate to be able to manufacture, develop, quality assure, and sell pharmaceuticals, especially those pharmaceuticals that need to be adapted and manufactured for specific individuals. This can involve people who have serious illnesses, people who take a very large amount of medication, or people who have, for example, allergies that prevent them from taking the most common preparations. One might be allergic to eggs or a substance found in those medications. It can also involve seriously ill children who need to take medications in liquid form that are normally most often given to adults.
This state-owned company has had that assignment for a long time. It is a special social mission. But our government – and this is something I am proud of – decided in 2023 to develop the state responsibility to also be able to maintain this production and these tasks, this development, in peacetime crises and in war. To be able to do that, one needs to develop and expand its operations.
Now there is an opportunity to purchase additional manufacturing industry. In order to be able to do that, we want to move funds from what we have budgeted in the item for civil preparedness within health and medical care to another budget area where there is money for capital injections to be able to purchase, for example, such operations. It is therefore not new money that the government is adding. It is a redistribution, and it is a redistribution of money that has all along been intended to go towards increasing civil preparedness within health and medical care. They are being moved now so that this state-owned company can use the money to purchase operations.
This is about giving us an increased basic protection. It makes us a bit safer in the event of peacetime crises but also, ultimately, in the event of war. It is not about a belief that the state should produce all medicines or that it produces medicines better than others. I really want to emphasize that. It is about a basic protection. It is about civil preparedness, not having all eggs in one basket, and being better prepared.
Extra supplementary budget for 2025 – Capital injection to Apotek Produktion & Laboratorier AB
The pandemic showed that all countries, in the event of a crisis, prioritize their own country over entered international agreements. It showed us the need for industrial knowledge and the need to be able to produce more critical medicines ourselves. If we do that, we will not start at square one or two, but perhaps rather at square three or four.
APL has, as stated previously, a special social mission, but it is our government that has expanded that mission in order to be better prepared in the event of crisis and war. I am happy and proud that there is now also an opportunity to develop this activity.
With that, I move for approval of the committee's proposal for a decision.
In this speech, Jesper Skalberg Karlsson (M) agreed.
The deliberation was hereby concluded.
Source: The Swedish Parliament. The speeches come from the open data of the Riksdag, translated into English by AI, which may contain errors.