Response to interpellation 2024/25:280 on cooperation for gender equality
Translated from Swedish by AI; the translation may contain errors. The Swedish text is the original.
Summary AI, written in advance
The debate concerns the cooperation between the Nordic Council of Ministers and the Nordic Council to promote equality. L argues that good cooperation is important and that cooperation already exists, for example by the Nordic Council's proposals being included in the new program Pushing for Progress 1 2 3 4. L emphasizes that forms of cooperation vary and that there is no standing place in expert panels 2. S argues that equality is in decline and that cooperation is necessary 5. S criticizes L for not having responded to requests for meetings and considers it disrespectful and democratically regrettable 6. S emphasizes that they want a long-term commitment and joint conversations 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.
Statsrådet Paulina Brandberg (L)
Madam Speaker! Eva Lindh has asked me what the reason is that cooperation is no longer possible between ministers and parliamentarians in the Nordic countries to jointly promote equality, and how I intend to act, within my area of responsibility, regarding continued cooperation between the Nordic Council and the Nordic Council of Ministers.
Good cooperation between the Nordic Council of Ministers and the Nordic Council in the area of equality is important. There are many contexts where the Nordic Council of Ministers and the Nordic Council can cooperate to strengthen the work for equality, in the Nordic region and in the world. Eva Lindh expresses that the Nordic Council of Ministers for Equality and LGBTI (MR-JÄM) would have rejected such cooperation. I do not share that view. As an example of concrete cooperation in the area of equality, I want to mention that the Nordic Council's Welfare Committee was recently consulted in the preparation of MR-JÄM's new cooperation program for equality and LGBTI 2025-2030, and that proposals from the committee were subsequently considered in the preparation of the cooperation program. This will characterize the Nordic equality work throughout the entire program period 2025-2030.
As MR-JÄM has previously informed the Nordic Council's Welfare Committee in a letter response, it is important that our cooperation is designed based on each given context. Nordic experts who possess expertise in the relevant issue are invited to MR-JÄM's expert panels during the UN's Commission on the Status of Women (CSW).
During the Swedish presidency of the Nordic Council of Ministers, we have made several important decisions in the area of equality. In addition to the new cooperation program, MR-JÄM decided at its meeting on 27 November 2024 on a three-year program for the period 2025-2027, Pushing for Progress, to meet the growing opposition to equality and equal rights for LGBTI people and to strengthen these rights in the Nordic region and on the global arena.
We all agree that the Nordic countries should be a clear force in defense of equality, women's and girls' rights, and equal rights for LGBTI people. To succeed in this, we want to cooperate with other like-minded parties and build alliances with other countries, with civil society, and with other organizations. In that work, I look forward to also cooperating with the Nordic Council's Welfare Committee.
Eva Lindh (S)
Madam Speaker! Equality is about all people's equal value and rights. We should have the same opportunities to influence society and live our lives in all the different ways we mean in terms of living our lives with the same rights. Unfortunately, equality is in decline globally, but also in Sweden. This means that we really need to cooperate to strengthen our positions and work to strengthen equality again because of what the Minister for Equality spoke about, pushing back, so that we take steps forward and not backward in the area of equality.
I therefore thought it was very positive when, as chair of the Nordic Council's Welfare Committee, I received the question from ministers about jointly participating in what we sometimes call the women's summit in New York, the Commission on the Status of Women CSW, which is an annual gathering where people meet to talk about equality and other matters. We thought it was positive and welcomed the invitation, the extended hand, from the Nordic Council of Ministers to us parliamentarians in the Nordic Council to cooperate during the Commission on the Status of Women's meeting.
We shared the picture that there was great demand from Nordic politicians but also Nordic experts to be able to share the knowledge that exists and the successes that have been made in the Nordic region over a long period. We parliamentarians in the Nordic Council could be involved and contribute there.
The first time it worked. It was a beginning, albeit a hesitant one, for us to do it here together. But in connection with Sweden taking over the chairmanship in the Nordic Council - we have a chairmanship there where we take responsibility according to a rolling schedule - it suddenly stopped. Then we requested a meeting with the responsible minister, that is, Equality Minister Paulina Brandberg. She was also the minister who received our letters and requests for a meeting to talk about how we together could continue the work that we had intended to be a long-term joint effort to strengthen equality.
No answer came. On several occasions and in different ways, we have truly wished for and requested an answer and both formally and informally tried to arrange a meeting. This is not about me, Madam Speaker, but about parliamentarians in the Nordic Council requesting a meeting with the responsible minister. But we have not received any answer.
It feels a bit strange, of course, to have an interpellation debate about this. But we sent a letter again this summer, on June 28, where we wrote that we requested a meeting either at the session to be held in Reykjavík in October or at least a digital meeting before October 30. This was denied. I would therefore like to ask the Minister for Equality: Why?
Statsrådet Paulina Brandberg (L)
Madam Speaker! To begin with, the member's commitment to gender equality is extremely positive. It is of course important that we have a broad consensus on gender equality, on how important it is and how important cooperation is in these issues. That is how we will move forward.
As I said earlier, I do not share the view that there has been no cooperation between the Nordic Council of Ministers and the Nordic Council. There is cooperation, and how the cooperation looks varies, of course, from year to year.
Regarding the issue of CSW, the UN Commission on the Status of Women, the Nordic Council of Ministers organizes side events every year on different themes based on the theme that CSW has respectively each year. In addition to a political ministerial panel, where the Nordic ministers for equality participate, one or two expert panels are usually organized. These expert panels vary from year to year depending on which issue is to be addressed and which voices are considered should be heard in the current debate.
This type of panel participation can therefore not be based on a certain person or a specific organization, for example the Nordic Council, having a given, pre-determined place in the panels, as the Nordic Council of Ministers decides. I absolutely see it as positive that in certain years and when it concerns certain issues, such a place can exist, which can be good. But the work is not structured in such a way that there is a standing place.
As I previously said in my opening remarks, the Nordic Council of Ministers has recently decided on a new Nordic program to meet precisely that resistance to equality that the member describes – a view I share. This Nordic program, which we in MR-JÄM have decided on, called Pushing for Progress, will have great significance for the joint work in this area moving forward, both in the Nordic region and globally. This program was referred to the Nordic Council, and the Committee on Welfare Issues has submitted proposals on specific issues that have also been included in the program. The Nordic Council has thus provided valuable input that has become part of the program.
I do not, therefore, share the image that there is no cooperation. On the contrary, there is good cooperation, but it obviously looks different from year to year and depending on which issues are on the agenda and what the context is. I will always be positive towards having a cooperation regarding equality in those issues and in those contexts where I see that this can move things forward.
Eva Lindh (S)
Madam Speaker! It is naturally very strange that this is now becoming more of a debate than a conversation, which we could have had in another way. I felt that I simply wanted to get answers, and since it was not possible to get answers in any other way, I submitted an interpellation.
I am passionate about equality. Many of us are. In the Welfare Committee of the Nordic Council, which is responsible for equality issues, there is a great commitment and also a great will and desire to cooperate, because together we become stronger. Now that we see that equality is being challenged, we could truly become stronger if we did this together.
I do not quite understand how the Minister cannot see this. First, one does not even respond for several months to formal and informal requests for a meeting, and then one responds that, with reference to the Minister's calendar, it is not possible to arrange a digital meeting. For four months, the Minister has therefore not had time to meet parliamentarians from the Nordic Council. I find this outrageous given the equality, but I also actually think it is very regrettable from a democratic perspective.
How are we supposed to do things and improve things when we cannot even meet and talk with each other? Then we could have cleared up the misunderstandings that the Minister for Equality continues to repeat here in the rostrum. We managed to get a meeting with officials at one point this spring. It emerged then that it had been assumed that we would sit in a certain panel. We have never, ever communicated this.
We wanted to cooperate, and we wanted to meet to talk about how we can cooperate - for equality, together, in the Nordic region. There is a great demand for knowledge and competence, but it is also about how we have been able to politically enable the successes that we have previously achieved. We have not reached all the way; there is, of course, much to do in the Nordic region. But compared with many other countries, we have achieved successes, and there is a great demand.
What we have requested has been: In what way? Yes, perhaps through a seminar, but perhaps also in other ways. But we could have discussed this, if we had managed to have a meeting. It is very difficult to understand how it is possible that for several months one doesn't even answer—which I think is disrespectful—and then answers that one does not have time to squeeze in a digital meeting in the calendar over four months.
It is not just me, but also the Welfare Committee that wonders. We do not understand in what way and why, and we have asked those questions. What has the decision not to wish for cooperation been based on? We cannot interpret it in any other way. Who has made the decision? What is the reluctance based on? All these questions we have sent along. It must therefore be clear for the responsible minister in Sweden, who has held the chairmanship – she should be able to answer these questions. It should not have to take place via some official who merely informs that it is not possible with reference to the calendar.
I think it is a pity, and I think it is regrettable for the sake of equality. We could move forward more. I also think it is regrettable from a democratic perspective, and that is why I want this debate, or hopefully this conversation, and get answers to my questions.
Statsrådet Paulina Brandberg (L)
Madam Speaker! I shall keep it quite brief.
I want to be clear that there is, therefore, no decision that from the Swedish side it is considered that there should not be a cooperation between the Nordic Council of Ministers and the Nordic Council. Had such a decision existed, we would of course not have referred the proposal for a new program to the Nordic Council and woven in the views that the Nordic Council had in the program Pushing for Progress. This I really want to be clear about.
Then I want to express my regret if no written reply has been received for requests that have been sent to me at the department. It is clear that it should be received if one is seeking me.
Eva Lindh (S)
Madam Speaker! I do not want to seem ungrateful, but I hope that the Minister for Equality does not mean with her answer that we should be grateful that this has been referred. I think that is quite obvious. What I am requesting is that we also hold conversations in order to move forward together. We are not looking to quarrel or cause trouble, but we want to help. We want to do this together. But it is difficult to cooperate with someone who does not want to cooperate.
We still have hopes. Now it is a new country that has the chair. I hope that our requests for a cooperation moving forward are received in a better and more positive way. Now we can leave this behind, I hope, and look forward. We mean that we generally have a long-term commitment to equality and that this is a participation where we would like to cooperate with the Nordic Council, because then we can move forward. This is something we do not just want to do now but over a long period ahead. We therefore have a long-term commitment, and this was also the basis for why we went at all. We think it is important that one does not just do things on one occasion but has a long-term commitment.
We really hope that this is received in a different way than the reception so far, which I can only regret. I hope that the Minister for Equality can now, since Sweden does not have the presidency, in other ways show not only me – this is not about me even though I am the chair of the Welfare Committee – but also the committee and the Nordic Council that one now really means business about doing things jointly. I expect, of course, that this – that we get matters referred, which is very good – continues and that we can also develop the cooperation that we hope for.
Statsrådet Paulina Brandberg (L)
Madam Speaker! As I began by saying, there is a great consensus between me and the member that cooperation is needed in equality issues, not least in the Nordic region.
It is no secret that our countries in the Nordic region have come further than many other parts of the world when it comes to equality, and we therefore need to have good cooperation at the Nordic level to strengthen equality within the Nordics but also continue to be a forward-driving force globally, something that is perhaps more important now than in a very long time.
I appreciate that the member has raised this issue in the debate, and I can assure the member that we will continue to find different forms of cooperation to address these issues in the future. From the Swedish government's side, we naturally view a cooperation also between the Nordic Council of Ministers and the Nordic Council positively.
Source: The Swedish Parliament. The speeches come from the open data of the Riksdag, translated into English by AI, which may contain errors.