Response to interpellation 2022/23:27 on Sweden's green basic industries and their competitiveness
Translated from Swedish by AI; the translation may contain errors. The Swedish text is the original.
Summary AI, written in advance
1 KD considers it urgent to ensure competitiveness throughout the entire food chain to create growth and employment 1. KD wants to strengthen competitiveness through increased food exports, innovation power, strengthened competence supply, and regulatory simplification 1. KD argues that production must be given greater status and that competitive conditions must be balanced with high animal welfare requirements 1 2. KD wants to lower the reduction obligation to the EU's minimum level 1 and argues that entrepreneurs experience regulatory red tape that must be reduced 1. KD emphasizes that Tillväxtverket shall analyze the regulations to propose simplifications 3. 3 KD considers that Swedish perspectives should be highlighted in the EU and that alliances should be built with countries with similar interests 3. KD wants to work strategically to simplify for small business owners and farmers 3. KD argues that the food strategy needs clearer goals for increased production and that a dialogue should be initiated for a food strategy 2.0 4. KD emphasizes that environmental, social, and economic sustainability must be in harmony 4. SD considers that the ambition for regulatory simplification should be one rule in and two rules out.
Written by AI in advance and may contain errors. The numbers lead to the speech a statement builds on; check against the text below.
Landsbygdsministern Peter Kullgren (KD)
Madam Speaker! Alexander Christiansson has asked me what I and the government intend to do to ensure the conditions for green industries when it comes to a competitive food production.
Initially, I want to point out that I agree with the interpellor that it is very important to ensure competitiveness in the entire food chain, for both small and large companies. The overall goal by 2030 for the national food strategy is to have a competitive food chain where total food production increases while relevant national environmental goals are met. The purpose is to create growth and employment and contribute to sustainable development throughout the entire country.
In total, three action plans for the food strategy have been decided, one of which is completed. The two ongoing action plans involve measures until and including 2025 amounting to approximately 200 million kronor annually and include, among other things, initiatives in the three focus areas of knowledge and innovation, consumer and market, as well as rules and conditions.
Within the framework of the food strategy, improvements have been made, and we shall take note of what is positive. From my perspective, however, we can do more. In order to achieve the goal of increased food production, the provisions regarding increased production must be given greater status, not least in light of a corona pandemic and an uncertain world. I see it as my task to strengthen the competitiveness in the Swedish food chain.
I am aware that the Swedish food chain faces challenges due to Russia's illegal invasion of Ukraine. The war has led to increased costs for input goods such as electricity, fuel, and packaging materials. All of this collectively leads to higher costs for the final products.
In the election, we promised to lower the costs for fuels through reduced tax. In the Tidö Agreement, the coalition parties agree that the reduction obligation shall be lowered to the EU's minimum level 2024. This is important for Swedish primary production.
That Sweden has a good supply capacity when it comes to food is important. An important piece of the puzzle in that work is increased food exports, which in the long run can contribute to increased competitiveness.
The Government also wants to strengthen the competitiveness of Swedish food production and at the same time improve global animal welfare. Therefore, a review shall be made of the possibilities to, in a manner compatible with the common agricultural policy in the EU, balance the competitive conditions for Swedish food producers with maintained high Swedish animal welfare requirements.
Agriculture and the horticultural industry are the foundation for the country's food supply. Even though much today is automated and digitized within primary production in comparison to how production looked 100 years ago, the entire food chain creates an enormous number of jobs. This is the fundamental pillar for the countryside's survival. Today's food production is largely high-tech, regardless of whether it is animal husbandry or cultivation. The need for personnel will be great. In that case, competence supply is needed.
In conclusion, I also note that entrepreneurs in the food chain experience regulatory red tape. It must become easier. I therefore want to highlight four areas that I will now work further on to ensure Swedish competitiveness: increased food exports, increased innovative power, strengthened competence supply, and increased regulatory simplification.
We know that Swedish food is delicious, has a low climate and environmental impact, and creates jobs throughout the country. Sweden needs a strong food chain now more than ever.
Alexander Christiansson (SD)
Madam Speaker! Thank you, Minister, for the answer! I received the Minister's answer with satisfaction. I am completely convinced that we have the same ambitions when it comes to these questions.
In my capacity as spokesperson for small business issues for the Sverigedemokraterna, I must say that these industries are completely central. Most companies within these industries are small companies. They struggle hard with their profitability. They have done so for a long time and not only because of the war and the pandemic which have caused further problems. I mean therefore that this is an important issue. Not only a micro-perspective was needed, but also a macro-perspective to see how we are to tackle the problems in the long term.
In this debate with the Minister, I will devote myself to precisely the short-term and long-term goals in my first contribution, and then move on to some more procedural issues and such.
I think the minister misses mentioning one thing. He mentions the illegal invasion of Ukraine as a major reason. Certainly, that is so. No one denies that. But over the last eight years, a number of bad political decisions have also been made that have exacerbated this and led to increased diesel prices and electricity prices. It is an important aspect that I want to include.
We have achieved a reduced diesel tax for agriculture. The first question is whether we share the same view that this reduction should remain in place for a long time. I mean that there must be a long-term thought behind that reduction.
The industries themselves say, linked to their profitability, that it is not possible to achieve profitability with national costs and international prices. There is something to that. Some measures are needed in both the short and long term precisely to increase productivity. I am thinking of taxes that need to be lowered, simplified regulations, which the minister also mentions in his answer, and simplified administration. I think that one needs to distribute the cost across our animal welfare, environmental, and climate ambitions. A larger domestic market is still the goal.
I see myself as a market liberal and a person who appreciates free enterprise where politics does not stick its paws in too much. That is what has been done for a long time, not least connected to the EU's regulatory framework, which has been a rather major concern for our green industries.
In the end, it is not just about entrepreneurship, but also about the fact that we need to have control over our own food preparedness. The green industries wrote a petition to the Committee on Environment and Agriculture. It was subsequently tabled and added to the records. In the petition, they addressed precisely the food preparedness, which today lies below 50 percent. I and the Sverigedemokraterna believe that it is far too low. We must increase our self-sufficiency rate so that we ourselves have control over it if further crises should strike Europe. One never knows what will happen in the future. Then we need to create good conditions for the green industries, I think. And that is what we want together moving forward.
The Minister mentions three focus areas: knowledge and innovation, consumer and market, and rules and conditions. Can the Minister elaborate a bit more in detail on how the thinking is regarding improving for these industries in the short and long term?
Landsbygdsministern Peter Kullgren (KD)
Madam Speaker! I thank you for the questions. We will see what I manage to answer in this contribution. We may perhaps return to something if I do not have time.
I want to start at this end. There are few agricultural and forestry entrepreneurs I have met who actually like the crisis packages, the subsidies, and the ups and downs and back and forth with grants. They want to be viewed and treated as the entrepreneur they are. But we have a situation where there are quite a lot of ups and downs. And it has been turbulent lately. We had a tough drought in 2018, we had the corona pandemic, and now we have the war.
There have, of course – I agree with you, Alexander Christiansson – also been a long series of politically bad decisions. Some of them we have addressed in the Tidö Agreement. We are going to do something about them. The reduction obligation is one such decision. Regarding the reduction that we in the newly drafted budget extend for the coming years, so that there is a zero level on the diesel tax for agriculture, forestry, and aquaculture, we also write that we must keep under close supervision how it goes in the coming years.
It is clear that we need to have long-term thinking in the decisions we make. That the reduction obligation is lowered in this way is something that we have pointed out should apply at least during this mandate period. Then we will see. If production starts up in Sweden, which I believe we all hope, and if we can achieve a biofuel production in Sweden that does not push up the price in the way that what we import now does, we potentially end up in a different situation.
I believe it is extremely important that one focuses on competitiveness. The animal welfare investigation that we also write about in the Tidö Agreement is also an orientation for competitiveness: How are we to strengthen competitiveness against other countries without compromising our requirements? It can then be read as: How do we get more EU countries to raise their requirements on animal husbandry?
The Commission will likely come forward with a proposal on stricter animal welfare during the third quarter of next year. It is something that we will have an initial discussion about at the next agriculture and fisheries council meeting in December, in just a few days. I will therefore follow that discussion with interest.
Under our chairmanship, which takes effect from the turn of the year, there will certainly be more discussions regarding those issues. There, it is important that Sweden points out what successes we have achieved through our view on animal husbandry, and that through it we can have significantly lower antibiotic use than many others. But one should also not underestimate the importance of us increasing the competitiveness for Swedish farmers and their competitive conditions in relation to other European farmers.
Alexander Christiansson (SD)
Madam Speaker! I believe the Minister provided answers to most of the questions. But this also brings me to exactly what I intended to take up in my second speech, linked to red tape and not least the EU.
I myself have had the privilege of being down in Brussels and presenting Sweden's view on precisely these issues and our way of working with what is called in English gold-plating, that is, over-implementation of regulations and laws. I believe, if I am not mistaken, that it was the United Kingdom that was first before they left – they took the gold medal in over-implementing. We came in second. Now I believe we are in first place and have taken over that medal, which I do not see as anything particularly positive.
Even as the Minister mentions, linked to the Animal Husbandry Inquiry, it is the case that one then wants to set higher requirements on other countries, which I in fact have nothing against when it comes to that issue. The problem is that when the EU comes with regulations and regulatory frameworks, we have a tendency to over-implement them and be the best in class, perhaps to shine and look good compared to other member states.
The problem is that it creates a huge imbalance in competition, as our farmers and green industries are given completely different conditions than other countries are – this is, of course, fully known to the Minister. To take an example, the Commission came up with a proposal on percentage rates for plant protection products, where one had reduced plant protection products by 50 percent. In hindsight, it could be seen that one perhaps did not achieve what was the goal's purpose, but rather, on the contrary, created an imbalance in competitiveness.
Just the keyword impact analysis comes up often, and that one misses doing a basic impact analysis for the regulatory changes that one makes. This is the case both in the EU – they receive a lot of criticism for it – and in Sweden. There, I mean that we need to become significantly better at, when we introduce new regulatory frameworks, structurally thinking through what looks good theoretically on paper but which in the end has enormous consequences that are not positive for our Swedish entrepreneurs. It is a problem, and then we must find ways to also be able to follow up on the regulatory changes that we have made and see what the outcome was, what the consequence was, and how this benefits our industries in Sweden.
My ambition for my entire political career when it comes to the business sector is precisely that Sweden should receive the absolute best conditions - even better conditions than other countries - to become so enormously competitive, skilled, and good at what we do that we can compete with other countries in an exemplary way. It is innovation and these things that Sweden is fantastically good at. We shall take advantage of that.
I just want to ask a question. In the budget, it says on page 10: "In this bill, a first step is taken by promoting investments in research and development. The Government will also appoint a productivity commission that shall analyze the greatest obstacles to increased productivity in the Swedish economy and submit proposals on how productivity can be improved. Work will begin to systematically reduce companies' costs for administration."
It is a very good piece of writing, I think. But I have a question for the Minister in connection with the productivity commission: Can the Minister elaborate on what is meant by the commission and what that work will look like? Because, according to the industries themselves, there is a lack of a framework for consultation between the industries, politics, and authorities etcetera. Will the industries be able to be part of the work in that commission? That was my question.
Landsbygdsministern Peter Kullgren (KD)
Madam Speaker! One main area within the food strategy now is rules and conditions. Tillväxtverket has several important assignments within that area running until 2025 that will be of significance for the companies. They are tasked with continuously conducting analyses of the collective regulations for the food chain and identifying rules that impair competitiveness, growth opportunities, or the innovation capacity for the companies operating within the food chain. But they shall also identify any deficiencies in transparency and application of the regulatory frameworks and, based on that, analyze and submit proposals for simplifications. So far, we are in complete agreement.
I believe it is very important that the Swedish perspectives are raised in the EU and that we are present there at the highest level. It is my ambition to be there as much as possible, and that there is a Swedish minister's voice at the table. We shall also create good relations with other countries, including those with whom we have similar interests regarding the forest, hunting, or agriculture, and build alliances. That is how the EU works. But it matters that we are there on the spot, and that is what must change. We shall be more present to make the Swedish voice heard. It is extremely important.
We are also now entering a presidency, which places somewhat different demands on us. We may not be able to hold the Swedish position or wave it around all too much. Then we risk functioning less as a chairperson should in terms of seeking compromises, such as the Czech presidency worked and the French before them. It does not mean that we are opinionless, but one must find ways to get through in a good way. In that case, the good relations with other member countries, in my case with other agriculture ministers, are extremely important. They are created on the spot there, and that is my ambition to do.
Just as Alexander Christiansson says, we write in the budget about the productivity commission. It shall apply to both companies and the public sector. As I have previously pointed out, increased simplification of regulations is an important part of strengthening the Swedish food chain. But exactly how the government will work further with the productivity commission, we intend to return to at some point further ahead.
Then I believe that one needs to have respect for this matter of rule simplification. I have heard many previous rural ministers in Sweden talk about exactly that, and I have heard trade ministers talk about it. Everyone seems to have that ambition. I am not saying that I have a different ambition. But it seems to be very difficult to move forward there. I really hope that I succeed, but I have chosen to go back to these documents – a food strategy where we see that we need to increase the weight for production goals, for example.
I also see it as that we should work through the important instruments we have and dare to review them, rather than going out and promising that we will reduce regulations by a certain percentage here or there. Most who have followed that line have de facto failed, and I do not like to do that.
We will work strategically, hard and purposefully to simplify things for Swedish small business owners, not least farmers.
Alexander Christiansson (SD)
Madam Speaker! I believe it is wise to be somewhat restrictive and cautious about what one says. I know that the Christian Democrats' election promise linked to precisely rule simplification through the business policy spokesperson Camilla Brodin was: one rule in, two rules out. I believe that is completely correct. One needs to think that way, and that should be the ambition.
From my own experience, both from the business sector and as a politician during a period with responsibility for these issues, I know that goals are often set that do not primarily benefit the business sector. There are other objectives. It could be like during the pandemic, for example, when it was clear that the support for small businesses was always linked to and viewed from the employee's perspective. I have nothing against that in itself, but it very rarely concerned the employer's perspective.
I believe that one needs to find a balance when it comes to climate, environment and these issues, which are essentially important. But one cannot sacrifice the business sector because one sets very high demands and high goals regarding this, there must be a balance so that we can manage it in the long term. It must not be done so short-sightedly as I experience that the previous government handled the issues.
I actually just wanted to ask one last question regarding that which concerns supervision and permit assessments. It is not all too uncommon to hear businesses within the green industries describe that the authorities and the public sector that carry out the permit assessments have a lack of understanding of how the industry works, which results in them coming up with some requirements that are ill-suited for the businesses' activities.
I have even heard some who have said that they experience that there is an activism within certain authorities that sets demands. I thought I would ask if the minister has any views on these issues.
Landsbygdsministern Peter Kullgren (KD)
Madam Speaker! The food chain has faced a number of major challenges in recent years. As I mentioned, there has been the drought, the pandemic, and now a war in our vicinity that affects the energy supply and the global supply chains.
It shows that Swedish food production can handle greater challenges in a purposeful way and that there is a resilience in the industry. It also shows that the food strategy needs to enter a phase where writings on increased production must become clearer, not least in light of the situation we are in now.
Therefore, I will initiate a dialogue with the relevant parties in the food chain to capture all good suggestions regarding what we need to do and how we can best realize some kind of food strategy 2.0.
Sweden's food production shall increase. I have mentioned a number of areas that I see as crucial for strengthening Swedish competitiveness: increased food exports, innovation power, skills development, and increased simplification of regulations. As I mentioned earlier, it is a self-evident task for a rural affairs minister in Sweden to try to do everything to strengthen the competitiveness that we need in the Swedish food chain.
The committee members were looking at the sustainability perspectives. I believe there is a good reason why there are three: environmental sustainability, social sustainability, and economic sustainability. When these three are in harmony, we achieve the best results. If something gets out of hand so much that the others suffer, none of the sustainability perspectives benefit in the long run – neither the environment, the social, nor the economic. I always keep that in the back of my mind, even in this assignment.
Source: The Swedish Parliament. The speeches come from the open data of the Riksdag, translated into English by AI, which may contain errors.