Response to interpellation 2025/26:251 on maintained operations at emergency hospitals when telephony and networks are down
Translated from Swedish by AI; the translation may contain errors. The Swedish text is the original.
Summary AI, written in advance
KD argues that the government is doing a very good job of strengthening the robustness and cybersecurity of the digital infrastructure 1 2 3. KD emphasizes that 6.75 billion kronor have been allocated until 2030 to strengthen preparedness within the telecommunications sector 1 2. KD considers that the event on December 9 showed good preparedness as the hospitals were able to quickly switch to manual routines 2 3. KD argues that in that specific case, it was about a power shortage rather than the telecommunications operators' fault 3. KD wants to further develop the work to strengthen civil defense 3. KD underlines that the legislation must be general 3 4.
Written by AI in advance and may contain errors. The numbers lead to the speech a statement builds on; check against the text below.
Civilministern Erik Slottner (KD)
Mr. Speaker! Markus Selin has asked the Minister for Civil Defence whether the Minister has drawn any conclusions from the disruptions in one of the larger mobile operators' networks on 9 December 2025 and their follow-on effects for society-critical activities. Markus Selin has also asked what measures the Minister intends to take to ensure that emergency hospitals and other society-critical activities are not affected by disruptions in commercial mobile operators' networks.
The work within the government is distributed in such a way that it is I who shall answer the interpellation.
I would like to begin by stating that all involved actors, both public and private, need to take measures to ensure a high level of security and a strong crisis preparedness within the electronic communications and postal sector. The digital infrastructure is fundamental for a well-functioning society. It is our collective responsibility to contribute to the society's ability to withstand disruptions and quickly recover after an incident.
The Government, together with the Swedish Post and Telecom Authority and the actors in the electronic communications and postal sector, is carrying out active work to strengthen the robustness and resilience of the digital infrastructure. For over 20 years, operators have been subject to requirements to take measures to ensure a basic level of operational security in their networks and services in order to avoid disruptions and outages.
In the proposition Totalförsvaret 2025–2030 (prop. 2024/25:34), the government stated that measures need to be taken to strengthen robustness and resilience in networks and services. For this purpose, the government has allocated 6.75 billion kronor until 2030.
PTS works to strengthen actors' preparedness capabilities and reduce the risks of interruptions and disruptions. The authority finances resilience-enhancing measures to ensure access to backup power, enable the purchase of reinforcement materials and equipment, and strengthen repair capabilities. If the infrastructure is damaged or mobile networks are disrupted, it must be possible to rectify this quickly, in order to limit the impact on society-critical services.
The Government has tasked PTS with developing the forms of cooperation between private and public actors, for example regarding hybrid threats and incident reporting. The Government has also tasked PTS with strengthening the ability to prevent and manage incidents that may result from actor-driven threats in the electronic communications sector. These mandates strengthen the sector's capacity for action in both normal mode as well as crisis and high alert.
The government's digitalization strategy highlights the private sector's role and emphasizes the importance of public-private cooperation in the work to ensure that Sweden has a robust and redundant infrastructure. To strengthen the cooperation and improve the ability to quickly restore damaged digital infrastructure, the government has formalized the National Telecommunications Cooperation Group.
Despite the good work that has long been done to strengthen preparedness and the network's redundancy and robustness, it can never be completely ruled out that disturbances and interruptions will occur in electronic communications. Therefore, organizations that have a large dependence on functioning electronic communications must have preparedness to be able to conduct their operations even if disturbances and interruptions occur.
The EU directives NIS 2 and CER place requirements on, among others, the healthcare sector to ensure a high level of cybersecurity as well as resilience and the ability to provide essential societal services. On January 15, that is yesterday, the new Cybersecurity Act (2025:1506) entered into force. Thus, the NIS 2 directive was implemented into Swedish law. The Act states, among other things, that operators shall take appropriate security measures from an all-risk perspective.
In Sweden, there must always be available and reliable connectivity, functioning electronic communications, and access to digital services. The Government will continue its work to strengthen this very socially important infrastructure.
Markus Selin (S)
Mr. Speaker! I thank the Minister for the answer.
I cannot emphasize enough how serious the event on December 9 was. When six out of seven emergency hospitals in the Stockholm region are forced to go into emergency mode due to a disruption in the mobile network, Mr. Speaker, it is no longer a technical nuisance. It is then a critical security issue for the entire society.
An employee at one of these hospitals tells Aftonbladet: "We have no telephony. We have nothing." He explains that they have to run between the departments and that the employees have to call each other on duty on their private mobile phones. He says: "We are in 2025. This should not be happening."
Mr. Speaker! Here we can pause and reflect for a few seconds to remind ourselves of certain things. In emergency hospitals, lives are saved. Every second can have direct life-saving consequences. Sweden is today one of the world's most digitized countries. It is a strength, but it also demonstrably makes us vulnerable. It concerns healthcare, the rescue services, the police, the payment systems – we are deeply dependent on telephony and data communication functioning. When the electronic infrastructure fails, the entire social contract is actually put to the test.
Mr. Speaker! In previous years, Sweden took important steps to strengthen robust electronic communications through strategic work and a strengthened role for the Swedish Post and Telecom Authority. Digital infrastructure was once again regarded as a total defense issue.
Let me be clear: No one is asking the minister to micro-manage agencies or intervene in individual supervisory cases. That would be wrong. It contradicts our administrative model. Sweden has a prohibition against ministerial rule. But that does not mean that the government lacks responsibility when society-critical infrastructure fails. On the contrary, it means that the government is responsible for the frameworks, for legislation, for mandates, for priorities, and for resources.
Therefore, my question today is not who the Minister identifies as responsible, but what measures the government has initiated after six out of seven emergency hospitals were forced into emergency status due to power outages. The government has full capacity to task responsible authorities to analyze the incident, draw lessons, and propose measures. The government can issue tasks in regulatory letters, initiate coordination between sectors, propose legislative changes, and allocate resources.
My question is now: Does the Minister share the view that it is a systemic risk when six out of seven emergency hospitals in the Stockholm area are affected simultaneously? I would also like to know if the government has initiated any activities after December 9, that is to say, such things that were not already underway before December 9.
Civilministern Erik Slottner (KD)
Mr. Speaker! I share the interpellant's view. With the increasingly digitized society, we naturally become vulnerable. We become particularly vulnerable when those communications do not function. However, I want to say that we are also vulnerable when we work analogically and manually. Then we are vulnerable in a different way. Quite honestly, I do not know if we are most vulnerable in total when we are digital or when we are analog. It naturally depends on the situation and which activity we are in. What is important is that we have a good preparedness. When we work digitally, there must be analog and manual alternatives to resort to when the electronic communication does not function.
The individual case on December 9 was obviously very serious. I share that assessment. Of course, it is very serious when phones stop working, when you cannot reach 114 14, or when healthcare equipment does not function. But that incident also showed that the preparedness was good. The error was rectified very quickly – within a few hours. The hospitals went into emergency mode. Manual routines were adopted, which ensured that the consequences did not become as bad as they otherwise could have been. That the incident occurred was due to an interruption in the power supply which also affected electronic communications. But there were routines in place that proved to be very well-functioning. I think that was very good.
As Markus Selin says, the government and the ministers do not engage in detailed management of the authorities. We must absolutely not engage in ministerial rule, only authority management. We are responsible for laws, resources, and preparedness issues – exactly. It is precisely that which I think the government does in a very good way within this area.
As I mentioned in the interpellation response, a new cybersecurity law entered into force as recently as yesterday, just to mention an example. We have formalized NTSG, the National Telecommunications Cooperation Group, which I mentioned in the previous interpellation debate with Isak From. We levy a readiness fee from telecommunications operators to work with readiness. Within the total defense, we will allocate no less than 6.75 billion kronor until 2030 to strengthen readiness within the telecommunications sector. We also give new assignments in regulatory letters to, among others, the Swedish Post and Telecom Authority to strengthen the work in these issues even further. The purpose is that we should become less vulnerable when digital infrastructure is disrupted and more redundant – when a communication path is knocked out, there should be another to use instead.
This does not guarantee 100 percent that incidents will never occur. But when incidents do occur, either due to attacks, perhaps from an antagonistic state, or due to severe weather, as we have experienced in recent weeks, there must be an infrastructure to turn to instead. There must be a preparedness. I think that the very unfortunate incident that occurred on December 9 showed evidence that that preparedness is very good. But even things that work well can work even better, and that is why we in the government are making the investments that we are making now.
Markus Selin (S)
Mr. Speaker! Thank you again to the Minister for the answer!
When commercial mobile networks are shut down and the emergency hospitals are affected, it is not enough to merely refer to strategies, cooperation, and responsibility. It is also not enough to refer to EU directives and billions, as in the initial response. Billions sounds good. But the minister says nothing concrete about what it will do for these six, seven emergency hospitals that are at issue.
We share a common view. It is good to hear that the Minister also agrees that it is serious. But I miss the answer to one of my questions. Does the Minister share my view that it is a systemic risk? When telephone, data, and mobile networks are knocked out simultaneously, backup routines based on the same underlying infrastructure are not enough.
That is why we Social Democrats, during our years in government, began to speak about real redundancy and not just technical backup solutions. Previous S-led governments have also seen the seriousness of this, and we see it here and now as well.
We can all humbly state that this work is not finished. The Minister also mentions this. But the direction was clear then and must be now. Digitalization must always go hand in hand with resilience.
Mr. Speaker! I want to emphasize that it is not about pointing fingers at a single operator. When a technical failure has consequences for the entire emergency medical care in Region Stockholm, Sweden's largest region – in my constituency, Stockholm County constituency, Sweden's largest constituency – it is not a technical annoyance. It is, by definition, a system problem.
It is such systemic problems that I mean the government should handle through regulations, requirements, and preparedness. I hope and believe that the minister shares the view that digitalization without sufficient robustness implies increased risks for the patients in the hospitals, and in these cases, in the emergency hospitals.
Can the government imagine new or tightened requirements for mobile operators specifically regarding delivery security to emergency hospitals? Is there any such thinking by the minister or the government?
I note that the Minister says that the demands have existed for 20 years. Yes, but let us turn the tables. Then my question is: Is it enough that they have existed for 20 years? Has the government accepted that we can have this false sense of security?
Civilministern Erik Slottner (KD)
Mr. Speaker! I still think the interpellor listened a bit poorly, or perhaps listened poorly on purpose, to the two contributions I have made so far.
I explain very clearly in the interpellation response what the government is doing in the area to increase robustness, redundancy, and our cybersecurity in order to be able to withstand these types of pressures and events.
This is what I sleep least badly over at night regarding what the government is doing. I do not have the slightest bad conscience about the work the government is doing. It stands very high on our agenda, partly because it is an important part of the total defense and not least in the civil defense. That is why the protection of electronic communication has such a high priority in the increases within the civil defense.
A picture is being painted here that does not correspond to reality and which paints a black picture of Sweden and the government's work in this regard in an unfortunate and almost a bit mean way. I think the government is handling these issues in a very good way.
We have an authority, Post- och telestyrelsen, which has a very good reputation. It has handled this type of incident in a very professional manner. It is also to that authority that one should report this type of incident, and Post- och telestyrelsen analyzes it to see how one can avoid such things happening in the future.
In this specific case, it is about deficiencies in the power supply to our telecom networks. Actually, in this specific case, it is not the telecom operators that we should blame too much. In this specific case, it is about a power shortage.
We cannot have legislation and a regulatory framework that adapts to certain hospitals in the Stockholm area. Our legislation must nevertheless be general, and our measures must nevertheless be general, in order to avoid such things happening in the future to the greatest extent possible. But when it does happen in the future, our preparedness must be so good that the interruptions become as short as possible and the consequences as mild as possible.
Regarding what happened on December 9, our view is that the preparedness was good. The situation was handled very quickly. In a few hours, it was possible to restore and return to normal status again. That demonstrates good preparedness.
The question then is: Is the government satisfied with this? Does the government think we have done everything we need to? No. That is why we are giving new assignments to the Swedish Post and Telecom Authority in the regulatory letter for this year. We want to develop this work even further. We see that we need to work even more to strengthen our preparedness, the civil defense, and the protection of the population in a time when we are becoming increasingly dependent on digital services and electronic communication.
Markus Selin (S)
Mr. Speaker! Thank you to the Minister!
I am listening carefully. I understand the Minister's reaction. But my second question was: Has the Minister or the government done anything since December 9?
I turn to the description that it concerns some emergency hospitals in the Stockholm region. Let us turn that around. It is because so many people live here that we have so many emergency hospitals.
We can draw an analogy with other regions that perhaps have significantly fewer acute hospitals. It is because fewer people live there. It could be the same problem that I am looking for.
Again: I would very much like to hear if the minister or the government has done anything after December 9. I still perceive the situation to be very serious.
I still experience that there is a gap between political ambition and the more abstract political work and the final result. What happened on December 9? We cannot be satisfied with that.
It concerns six of the seven emergency hospitals. We have several depictions of how the staff have pushed themselves to the limit. That is why we stand here today. This is before a crisis and before war. It concerns emergency hospitals where every second can affect human destinies.
In conclusion, I want to say that when the telephony fails and the network is down at emergency hospitals, it is life and health that we are talking about. It is not technology.
Civilministern Erik Slottner (KD)
Mr. Speaker! The situation is obviously very serious when emergency hospitals are disrupted, regardless of where in the country it happens. When I said it was about a few emergency hospitals, it was not to neglect the number. I only meant that we cannot have routines and legislation adapted solely for hospitals in Stockholm, but it must be general. That was what I meant in my contribution.
We must learn lessons from all incidents. That is also why there are requirements for incident reporting to PTS so that lessons can be learned when incidents occur and so that we can work even better and even more effectively during future incidents.
One thing we know. Incidents will occur even in the future. There will be disruptions in various services in our societies. Then we must have routines in place so that the consequences will be as few and as mild as possible.
Markus Selin says that I am only referring to strategies and EU directives. I am not doing that at all! We have a newly adopted digitalization strategy. There, questions of robustness are important, and therefore I wanted to mention it in my interpellation answer. I also think it is important to mention the NIS 2 Directive and the CER Directive, because the EU is working very actively with cybersecurity, not least from a total defense perspective. I also mentioned the new legislation that came as recently as yesterday and all other measures that the government is taking, not least with the business community and with PTS. It is, therefore, a broad palette we are working with.
Finally, I shall answer the question of whether we have done anything after December 9. No, as Civil Minister, I have not done anything specifically because of December 9. The Government has given the assignments to PTS, and I think it is working well. We have reinforced the assignments in the regulatory letters to PTS.
From my perspective, I have not seen any reason to take further measures. However, it may have occurred in different departments, and I am thinking primarily of the Ministry of Social Affairs since this concerns acute hospitals. It is not something I am aware of, but from my side, no specific measures have therefore been taken.
Source: The Swedish Parliament. The speeches come from the open data of the Riksdag, translated into English by AI, which may contain errors.