Response to interpellation 2025/26:402 on political certainty for companies in the green transition
Translated from Swedish by AI; the translation may contain errors. The Swedish text is the original.
Summary AI, written in advance
The debate concerns political security for companies in the green transition. L (1) argues that Sweden should reach net-zero emissions by 2045 and that the industry needs carbon-neutral processes 1. L (1) argues that the government is creating conditions through fossil-free electricity, simplified permit processes, and preserved emission trading 1 2. L (1) argues that nuclear power is crucial for fossil-free electricity and that the government is working towards skills supply and streamlined permit processes 3. L (1) argues that the industry is the engine of the climate transition and that the government strengthens Sweden's competitiveness 4. S (7) argues that the government has abolished climate goals, stopped green credit guarantees, and is postponing important measures 5. S (8) argues that the government has failed in investments in biofuels and that the Sweden Democrats have cut out green credits 6. S (2, 3) argue that the climate policy is characterized by inconsistency and unpredictability. S (4) argues that the government has made it economically impossible for the farming industry to transition. S (6) argues that L cooperates with the radical right, which harms Swedish jobs and investments.
Written by AI in advance and may contain errors. The numbers lead to the speech a statement builds on; check against the text below.
Arbetsmarknadsminister och vikarierande klimat- och miljöministern Johan Britz (L)
Mr. Speaker! Jytte Guteland has asked me how I intend to act so that companies can continue the transition so that investments land, and jobs are developed, in Sweden. Let me first thank you for the interpellation.
Sweden shall move from a fossil to a fossil-free economy and reach the goal of net-zero emissions by 2045 with negative emissions thereafter. To succeed in this, Sweden's industries need to transition to carbon-neutral manufacturing processes in order to eliminate emissions from the process industry.
Swedish companies are already far ahead in climate work and are in many cases leading from an international perspective. The government's climate policy aims largely to create the conditions for companies to be able to continue carrying out that transition.
Long-term perspective and stability are crucial for investments in the transition to be realized. This applies in particular to the pricing of carbon, which is a prerequisite for investments in the transition to be profitable. It is through the EU's Emissions Trading System, EU ETS, that the industry's emissions are priced, and it is not least through this system that the prerequisites for the transition are provided.
In recent times, a number of member states within the EU have questioned the system and argued that relaxations are needed. Sweden has, in this discussion, been a clear voice that the emissions trading should continue to be at the center of the EU's climate framework. The EU's emissions trading system contributes to cost-effective emission reductions and creates predictability for the companies that are to transition.
In addition to pushing for an ambitious climate policy within the EU, the government is working to improve the conditions for companies to transition and strengthen their competitiveness. One of the most important individual prerequisites is access to fossil-free and reliable electricity at competitive prices.
That is why we have made a realignment of the energy policy to ensure the industry's and the business community's access to fossil-free electricity – when and where it is needed. We have also strengthened the work to make the permit processes simpler and more predictable, which is crucial for both attracting and retaining investments in Sweden.
Overall, the government is actively working to ensure that the transition takes place, with the net-zero goal in sight, for a long-term competitive Swedish industry.
Jytte Guteland (S)
Mr. Speaker! I thank the Minister for the answer, both the written and the oral one here in the chamber.
To begin with, I do not think I am getting a proper answer to the question. We agree that the EU's emissions trading system should be ambitious. It is a system that I myself have worked with and negotiated in the European Parliament. It has been and is important that it prices emissions so that the right incentives for transition exist. That is what we agree on.
My question, however, concerned why Swedish companies are worried about Swedish climate policy. It is not all industrial companies or energy companies throughout the EU that are worried in the same way about their governments, but this is precisely about heavy industry representatives being worried that billion-dollar investments could be lost if the right incentives are not in place. If fossil technology pays off better than fossil-free technology, then billion-dollar investments that heavy industrial actors have made or are prepared to make will not become profitable.
There is a concern at SSAB, LKAB and Vattenfall that there is no clarity regarding the climate policy. In the same way, there is a concern among the vehicle manufacturers. Both Volvo and Scania have expressed concern that it is not clear in the policy what applies to the climate goals and the electrification.
Climate goals determine what type of investments large and heavy companies can and want to make. But if it is not clear that it will go that way, that it pays off to electrify, and if it goes too slowly, those companies that invest there will lose in the future. So that obviously should not happen. But the risk is that these companies will instead invest in other countries.
Volvo's CEO Martin Lundstedt said this week that there is now a risk that jobs and investments will end up in China instead of in Europe because the European and Swedish politicians are not clear enough. This is dangerous, especially for Swedish jobs.
Thus, initiatives are formed, for example the Hague Initiative, with several companies that have joined together and demand clarity regarding climate policy. And within the financial market, major banks such as SEB, Swedbank and Nordea have expressed that it is important that it is visible that the climate investments will pay off. Otherwise, people will not dare to invest their money in the future important fossil-free industry.
All these questions are important for jobs, and therefore it is appropriate that the acting Minister for Climate is also the Minister for Employment. We have very high unemployment in Sweden today. The latest labor force surveys showed 8.8 percent. More than half a million Swedes are therefore unemployed. It has become 100,000 more with this government.
The government rejects this and tries to show that this is something structural; it is not about all people and so on. But the fact is that unemployment has increased by 100,000 people with this Minister for Employment.
The question in my interpellation is: Does the acting Minister for Climate and Environment and also Minister for Employment not want us to have an ambitious climate policy that also leads to more Swedish jobs so that we can break the unemployment?
Aida Birinxhiku (S)
Mr. Speaker! Thank you to the Minister for the answer to my colleague's interpellation!
My colleague Jytte Guteland raises a very important issue, namely that of the political leadership required to be able to increase the pace of the business sector's climate transition. This is particularly urgent against the background that every day we see how global competition is hardening, that we face large and rapid technological shifts, and that the geopolitical playing field is being redrawn.
We also know that Sweden's conditions are favorable. We have the expertise, the innovative solutions and the natural resources. But we must also show political leadership. We need to show that we want these investments and jobs to end up in Sweden.
Unfortunately, Mr. Speaker, that is not the case with this government's climate policy. Instead, it is a policy that has to the highest degree been characterized by volatility and unpredictability. This is something that has affected the industry's willingness to invest and which has made the transition both more difficult and more expensive.
It is not only we Social Democrats who say this, but the business community does as well. The Climate Policy Council does too, even though I have understood that this government has some difficulty internalizing facts in climate policy.
To increase the pace of the transition, Mr. Speaker, long-term perspective and stability are required, just as my colleague previously explained. I would like to be very concrete and take three clear examples where I want the Minister to answer.
We see how the government promised to stand behind all climate goals, but now wants to abolish the climate goal that it fails to reach. The government also promised to expand all necessary fossil-free electricity production but now says no to a cross-bloc energy agreement and would rather keep energy policy as some kind of political football in election debates. Furthermore, Mr. Speaker, this government chose to stop the green credit guarantees and reduce the appropriations to Industriklivet. These are important tools for investments in our industrial capacity.
My questions to the Minister are actually very simple and are based on these three concrete examples. Does the Minister think that this contributes to long-term perspective and stability for the business sector's transition? Does the Minister think that it contributes to more investments and more Swedish jobs?
Isak From (S)
Mr. Speaker! Thank you, Jytte Guteland, for a very important interpellation! I could not help but step into this debate.
If I may refer back to the previous interpellation debate on the transport goals, which Aida and Aylin had here, the Swedish heavy vehicle industry, particularly Scania and Volvo Trucks, has invested enormous sums in the green transition based on the premise that there should be regulations steering towards the electrification of heavy transport. This government has, at least during its first three and a half years, even though it is now trying to claim something else, steered away from this by making it economically virtually impossible for the trucking industry to transition.
No responsibility for the client has been introduced for either state-owned enterprises, state agencies or the public sector that would justify the transport industry investing to a greater extent in electrification. Nor have we steered in a way that justifies electrification of the many foreign transports that now travel on Swedish roads.
As appears from the answer to Jytte, the government is concerned about the EU's lowered targets. That can be done, especially in light of the fact that those who have carried out the transition, such as the Swedish forest industry, risk losing the emissions trading, which could finance the large investments that the forest industry has already made. But the one who looks at the government's own policy, especially that which the Tidö parties' largest party, Sverigedemokraterna, has been extremely driving for, sees that with an Alexander strike, the green credits have been chopped away. It has been made impossible.
First, they promised green credits and industrial step-up funds, and then they said no. Heidelberg Cement, which was at the forefront of carbon-free lime production on Gotland, was told no. Instead, we import fossil-extracted lime from Turkey, with long boat transports to Sweden. At the same time, this government supports fossil projects in India and Sierra Leone. While opposing the Swedish industry's transition, they support other countries' fossil industry projects.
This is what the industry and the environmental movement have jointly called the climate scam from this government. What is being done is to create insecurity, with very clear precision, for the companies that have actually financed and have wanted to finance and be a part of the green transition.
Arbetsmarknadsminister och vikarierande klimat- och miljöministern Johan Britz (L)
Mr. Speaker! This is a very good discussion, and it is very large questions that are being discussed now, not least within the EU. We are in complete agreement that there is no doubt that predictability is crucial for companies, so that they dare to invest in the transition or for other reasons.
That it costs to emit carbon dioxide is such a prerequisite. It is central for our heavy industry and our process industry. Therefore, the government believes that emissions trading should continue to be at the center of the EU's climate framework. This is now being challenged. The EU's emissions trading system contributes to cost-effective emission reductions. This creates predictability for the companies that are to transition. It is a prerequisite for investments in the transition to be profitable.
That is why the government's full focus in the EU area right now is to work actively to ensure that the review to be initiated in July preserves the basic functions of the emissions trading system and ensures that emissions continue to decrease within the EU.
Jytte Guteland (S)
Mr. Speaker! I perceive that the Minister is uncomfortable in the debate, and I believe I understand why. I believe, in fact, that the Minister has ended up in the wrong company and that it feels increasingly clear.
I have experience in negotiating climate policy at the EU level. I was the lead negotiator for the now quite famous Climate Act, and I also worked as my group's negotiator when it came to emissions trading – the one that the acting Minister for Climate and Environment now repeatedly brings up in the debate as an important cornerstone to defend in the climate regulatory framework.
I completely agree with the Minister on that question. We Social Democrats are in complete agreement with the Liberals on that question.
A few years ago, we cooperated very much, not least at the EU level, between liberals, Center Party members and Social Democrats – quite simply we parties in the middle in climate policy – when it came to how to design a stable climate regulatory framework. I know, because I was there.
Today, the Liberals have instead chosen to submit to the radical right, the same radical right that cooperates with Trump and the MAGA movement in the USA and ponders how one can place the USA's interests into the EU's legislative machinery. Among other things, it was a member from the Moderate Party group EPP who traveled to the USA and discussed how one could dilute the EU's climate regulations, something that should upset liberals. I believe there are many liberals who are upset about it. It goes directly against the interests of companies at the EU level and in Sweden.
Here at home in Sweden, the companies notice the change that the Liberals have undergone. They are irritated by it, because it is billion-dollar investments that many Swedish companies have either already made or are about to make that one is now becoming uncertain about. It concerns the heavy industrial companies – LKAB, SSAB and Vattenfall – and also vehicle companies, successful ones, such as Volvo and Scania. They see that it is uncertain at home. Politically, it is uncertain when the Liberals have sat on the lap of the Sweden Democrats. In China, on the other hand, it is clear that one must transition.
This is a very boring development for Swedish jobs. It would be infinitely better for Sweden and the Swedish jobs and for breaking the unemployment if the Swedish Minister for Climate and Environment were clear that he wants to negotiate with serious parties about clarity in the climate policy, that he intends to listen to the Environment Goals Board, where a majority of the parties in the Riksdag have participated, that he wants to stand up for climate goals that the Swedish companies want to see and that he also wants steering instruments that lead there. That would have been leadership from the acting Minister for Climate and Environment. Will we manage to see that leadership during the coming months?
Aida Birinxhiku (S)
Mr. Speaker! I note that I am not receiving any answers to my questions today. This is my second interpellation debate with the Minister. I want to repeat that I gave three very concrete examples: the abolished climate goals, the fact that the government does not want to enter into a cross-bloc energy agreement, and that they have stopped the green credit guarantees. Does the Minister think that this contributes to more investments and more Swedish jobs? It is a simple yes or no question, and I look forward to the Minister answering it in his next statement.
I also noted that the Minister raised the need for faster permit processes to increase the pace of the transition, which is something we Social Democrats also want to emphasize. Therefore, I question why the government has not proceeded with the proposal on modification permits as a general rule in environmental assessment. It was a proposal that the Environmental Assessment Inquiry, which the previous Social Democratic government appointed, actually came to. There is a finished proposal on the table. I would very much like to know why the government has not proceeded with it.
Another question is the uncertainty regarding future regulations. This is something we know hampers investments and the industry's transition. Right now, there are reports that the government has chosen to postpone the submission of the report from the so-called steering measures inquiry. Therefore, I simply wonder if these reports are correct.
We know that the government has postponed important measures and that one has, in principle, hung a great deal on the steering measures investigation. Therefore, I also want to ask the Minister if the figures are correct and when the government intends to receive the steering measures investigation's report.
Isak From (S)
Mr. Speaker! The Government and the acting Minister for Climate and Environment still have much to answer for. He must answer for the total failure of the Tidö cooperation in this area. It is clear that the large investments that were put into malpåse or paused when it came to biofuels could have meant that we would not be as dependent on Iranian oil today.
All the investments that the chemical industry on the west coast has planned are based on the fact that the climate transition proceeds, that one can move from fossil gas to biogenic biogas and that one can get access to fossil-free energy via large-scale offshore wind power. Perhaps we can at least come close to the support and guarantees that our closest EU countries receive. We also do not think that we should unnecessarily pour out state funds.
But it also becomes completely impossible to defend that investments should take place in Sweden when our closest competitor countries can, via EU regulation, take part in green credits – something that one therefore cannot take part in in Sweden because the Sverigedemokraterna have cut this out in their budget negotiations with the government. They have made impossible the investments that were actually planned.
Arbetsmarknadsminister och vikarierande klimat- och miljöministern Johan Britz (L)
Mr. Speaker! In order for us to succeed with the transition, it is absolutely crucial to continue the electrification of the industry and the transport sector. This requires access to fossil-free energy at competitive prices. Nuclear power has the potential here to produce large amounts of fossil-free electricity to enable the transition. The Government has therefore, throughout the entire mandate period, worked to improve the conditions for nuclear power and enable this expansion.
Now a broad energy agreement is being requested. But why do the Social Democrats consistently vote no to the proposals that the government puts forward to enable new nuclear power? They should just vote yes to them, and then we would have a broad energy agreement on nuclear power.
In addition to electrification, the government has implemented a number of measures to ensure that the necessary competence for the transition is in place, which is also important for the companies. We speak of long-term perspectives in regulations, but if one does not manage the competence supply, the transition will still not go particularly well.
We have initiatives for the universities of applied sciences. We have worked to streamline the permit processes. To some extent, the issue of modification permits has been handled by this government, and the change has occurred. We are fully committed to the fact that the permit processes need to become even more efficient and simplified.
In the budget bill for 2026, the government allocates funds to both the County Administrative Board and Tillväxtverket aimed at reducing the regulatory burden on companies and achieving faster permit processes.
Step by step, this government makes the transition possible. Step by step, we ensure that the transition can take place while households manage their finances and jobs can grow.
Jytte Guteland (S)
Mr. Speaker! Thanks to the acting Minister for the Environment and Climate, Johan Britz, for this debate!
I want to start by saying a few words about Sweden and Sweden's ability to transition. We have a historical tradition of being bold in transition. Companies that have been far ahead when it comes to technological innovation and companies that have known what the future has to offer have usually moved profitably into the future. This has been due to the fact that Sweden has had a tradition of investing in precisely these companies – through a well-educated workforce, good security systems and a good education system but also through clarity and cooperation between the state and the companies.
All this has contributed to Sweden many times having been a leader globally – in many areas. Despite the fact that we are not such a large state in the world, we have succeeded with this.
Now we see a breach in that tradition. We have a government that is backing into the future and that follows the radical right – here at home with the Sverigedemokraterna but also through cooperation partners who travel to Trump-influenced think tanks and learn what Trump and MAGA want. It is that cooperation that the Liberalerna now surround themselves with.
Historically, we also cooperated on climate policy – the Liberals and the Social Democrats. But the Liberals have turned away from that and instead submitted to the Sverigedemokraterna's conservative and populist knee. I believe that the acting Minister for Climate and Environment, as well as the Minister for Employment, is very uncomfortable. I do not believe at all that it was the dream when he joined Luf once upon a time, that the companies would look down on the work that he is now carrying out.
Arbetsmarknadsminister och vikarierande klimat- och miljöministern Johan Britz (L)
Mr. Speaker! I also remember a time – although I don't really, as I was hardly born then – when the Social Democrats were the ones who expanded nuclear power in our country and who understood the importance of us having a stable electricity supply for the sake of our industry and for the sake of our households.
I think it would be a bit appropriate if the Social Democrats indicated what they actually think about the nuclear power and energy policy that this government is pursuing and explained why they consistently vote no to all proposals put forward to enable more nuclear power in our country when we need this for our energy independence, for our competitiveness, and for the climate.
The climate transition can only succeed in an economy that is growing. Industry is central to Sweden's economy and central to our competitiveness, and it needs to be given the conditions to continue contributing to our country's welfare. Swedish business is the engine of the climate transition, and it should be given the conditions to be a leader. This government is working to ensure that Swedish business can carry out the transition in a way that strengthens Sweden's long-term competitiveness and contributes to us reaching our long-term goal of net-zero emissions by 2045.
Source: The Swedish Parliament. The speeches come from the open data of the Riksdag, translated into English by AI, which may contain errors.