Response to interpellation 2025/26:84 on domestic campaigns as a tool for foreign influence
Translated from Swedish by AI; the translation may contain errors. The Swedish text is the original.
Summary AI, written in advance
The debate concerns domestic campaigns as a tool for foreign influence. M takes foreign influence seriously but emphasizes that measures must be proportionate and take freedom of speech into account 1. M argues that the Psychological Defence Agency should not monitor domestic opinion formation 1 and that the agency does not represent a melting pot in this context 2. M wants this to be seen as a national matter 2 and advocates for the Psychological Defence Agency as best practice 2. S argues that the government's basis for the EU is incomplete and that domestic problems attract foreign influence campaigns 3 4. S believes that the government should increase public education instead of cutting funding 5.
Written by AI in advance and may contain errors. The numbers lead to the speech a statement builds on; check against the text below.
Minister för civilt försvar CARL-OSKAR BOHLIN (M)
Madam Speaker! Markus Selin has asked me if I have taken any initiatives to analyze how domestically created campaigns are exploited by foreign actors and how I intend to act to counter this.
The government takes seriously that foreign actors exploit our open society and digital development to reinforce polarization and undermine trust in democratic institutions. The threats can come from both inside and outside. Measures to counter information influence at both national and international levels, such as within the EU, need to be proportionate and take freedom of speech into account.
The Swedish Psychological Defence Authority, MPF, monitors information campaigns from foreign powers or from state-like actors abroad that are directed against Sweden or Swedish interests. MPF, however, is not tasked with monitoring such things as occur within the framework of free opinion formation within the country. The latter constitutes a basis for Sweden's democracy and is ensured through constitutional protection for our freedoms and rights.
Many important initiatives have been taken in recent years to counter foreign actors' attempts to influence our societies. The work to reduce vulnerabilities and strengthen long-term resilience is an important part of this. Therefore, it is part of MPF's mandate to increase public awareness and knowledge about the risk of information influence and influence campaigns from foreign actors. The Government has been keen to create the necessary conditions for the agency's rapid growth and development.
Another example is that the Media Authority has been tasked with carrying out a broad and long-term sustainable national strategy during 2024 and 2025 to strengthen media and information literacy in the population. The initiative aims, among other things, to increase the public's knowledge of how AI can be used in the flow of information and thereby contribute to strengthening society's resilience against, among other things, information influence. The mandate was reinforced during 2025 to deepen the AI focus and increase knowledge about AI and the opportunities and risks that AI can entail. The Government sees a need for the mandate to continue and has therefore proposed an extension for 2026–2028.
An informed population creates powerful resilience and strengthens the democratic dialogue. That is the very purpose of the psychological defense.
Markus Selin (S)
Madam Speaker! Thank you to Minister Bohlin for the opening response! We are here today primarily because the government and Minister Bohlin, who is a part of it, has submitted a discussion paper to the EU concerning the expansion and construction of a democratic shield. Influence campaigns are definitely a process and a phenomenon here.
Let me first, Madam Speaker, say that I have three thoughts when I listen to Bohlin's answer and review the written material before the debate. My first thought is quite simply that everything that the government has handed over to the EU is incomplete and almost clueless.
My second thought is: How has it gone for Sweden lately, if we back up and look back a few years? I am currently reading Tobias Billström's autobiography, which is on my nightstand. Many thoughts are awakened regarding this matter of democratic shield and influence campaigns. It is a good book – I am halfway through.
My third thought is: Where are we now, Madam Speaker, 311 days before the polling stations close? And what did it look like last year, when we last had an election campaign in Sweden?
Let me go back to how it has looked over the last few years. Then I go back to Sweden's ongoing and scarred Natoprocess. It was striking how the Sweden Democrats in general and leading Sweden Democrats in particular, who are part of Bohlins government base, took turns destroying for Sweden. This is so serious that it risks life and health. There are actually, I believe, Swedes who in this process have indirectly paid the ultimate price when shit, frankly put, has been spread about Sweden and Swedes all around in society.
How does it work then? What I am actually looking for in this issue, which Bohlin has completely missed in his answer, is that it is not possible to separate domestic phenomena from foreign influence campaigns. It is even the case, which Bohlin completely misses, that domestic problems and difficulties attract and give birth to foreign influence campaigns. This is completely missing in the initial answer.
Swedish domestic events, for example Quran burnings or that leading Sweden Democrats make provocative statements, are picked up in, for example, Turkish media, which portray Sweden as Islamophobic and many other non-flattering things. Pro-Russian and Russian phenomena amplify the unpleasantness – the stories about the bad sides of Sweden. They are spread all around the world at the speed of light, because the internet is indeed completely limitless.
China is hanging on. China supports Russia. They are friends – just like Moderates and Sweden Democrats, for that matter. It spreads to Islamist networks, which spread this like a virus all around the world. In that way, we have a Swedish-born influence campaign that comes from Sweden and goes around the world several times.
Minister för civilt försvar CARL-OSKAR BOHLIN (M)
Madam Speaker! This was probably one of the most incoherent remarks I have ever heard in the chamber of the Riksdag. I didn't actually perceive that any questions were being posed to me; that is, after all, the purpose of this type of debate.
But let me try to pick apart some of what Member Selin here has presented. I can start by saying that it is nice that Selin cares about the Nato process that the government I belong to has taken on. We ensured that Sweden became a Nato member. The Member's concerns are possibly a bit misplaced, because if Markus Selin gets what he wants and can form a government where the Vänsterpartiet and Miljöpartiet are included, it will be a government with two parties that are opponents of Nato membership. They were opponents of Nato membership. In fact, if these parties had been part of the previous government, one probably could not have even made a decision to initiate an application process for membership in Nato. The Member's tone when it comes to the part of the Nato application process that this government has handled and taken on is possibly a bit too high.
Member Selin says between the lines, but never fully articulates, is that he has problems with a part of the domestic political debate in Sweden. I want to be clear that the Authority for Psychological Defense does not have the task of scrutinizing the domestic political debate. It is a constitutionally protected part of the free formation of opinion.
With this said, one can observe, as Selin has pointed out in previous interpellation debates, that it is important that everyone sweeps in front of their own door. Markus Selin has previously been very critical of what has been called the Sweden Democrat troll factory in the media. But let me then pose a counter-question to Member Markus Selin: How does this differ from how the Social Democrats themselves act?
Member of the Board Selin has said from this rostrum that anonymous accounts on social media should be removed. Yet, it is precisely such things that the Social Democrats engage in. They engage in anonymous meme accounts on social media. So, of course, one is allowed to do that, but it is a bit hypocritical to demand something from others that one cannot live up to oneself.
Markus Selin (S)
Madam Speaker! I note that Minister Bohlin is completely leaving the subject. I have submitted two written questions before this debate, and I am receiving no answers. I have received a written and an oral non-answer. Now Minister Bohlin is heading far away from the subject.
Research, reports from our own authorities, and Minister Bohlin's own national security strategy from 2024 emphasize that it is not possible to separate domestic and foreign campaigns. It is not possible. But Minister Bohlin is completely isolated when it comes to what concerns foreign campaigns.
Madam Speaker! Yes, it is very good that governments in Sweden take initiative and influence the course of events in the EU. But it is not possible to speak of a structure and point to Russia – I have illustrated how the problems are born and grow. We in Sweden have to pay the ultimate price for this.
How does this government act then? If one is to build a larger knowledge base among the population and an understanding of how digital platforms work, is it not better, for example, to increase efforts for adult education and not remove half a billion from adult education? And public service receives reduced appropriations during the upcoming eight-year period while we have troll factories and other phenomena. Bohlin perhaps likes to rely on Elon Musk's sewage channel X as a source of information?
We live in a world where young people are increasingly getting their news and knowledge from social media. All of this illustrates what is contained in my questions. It is not about how the Social Democrats' potential, hypothetical coalition partners could have voted in another time. I think State Secretary Bohlin should shape up the situation here a bit. The questions remain. This is connected. We cannot duck out of it. That is why we are here and debating today.
Then we have this issue with the troll factories. Absolutely right: They must go. They are very harmful. We can introduce different methods for that purely technically, for example age limits and the like.
Sveriges Radio has also, in connection with the cuts, announced that 3.4 billion is missing. It is perhaps 400 positions that need to be removed there – in connection with monitoring the developments in Russia. It simply doesn't add up.
Domestic problems are linked to foreign problems.
I can provide my third point already. There are, in fact, 311 days left until election day. How did it go last year? Yes, it became something of a meltdown. Cold facts, TV4's program, revealed the Sweden Democrats' troll factory. There were at least 23 confirmed anonymous troll accounts that had spread filth, even against moderate politicians.
The failure occurred when the Authority for Psychological Defense – I didn't mention it at all in my introduction, but it was Bohlin who brought it up – reported the program to the Review Board. The Review Board acquitted it completely. Jimmie Åkesson got angry. There were saliva-spraying defense speeches, and all of us were declared to be flies. But there are more parties than the Social Democrats who would gladly see the Director General of the Authority for Psychological Defense find a new job.
TREDJE VICE TALMANNEN
I remind of the subject of the interpellation and that we are not debating individuals. The Minister may, of course, handle it from that perspective.
Minister för civilt försvar CARL-OSKAR BOHLIN (M)
Madam Speaker! Thank you for the reprimand of Member Selin! It is difficult to conduct a discussion on the subject when it is merely a potpourri of tirades in the speaker's chair.
But let me try again to pick up on part of what Member Selin has said. After all, this is what I have to contend with in the debate.
First and foremost, what I mentioned regarding Vänsterpartiet and Miljöpartiet concerning the Nato issue is not a hypothetical argument. It is an account of how they voted in this chamber when the Riksdag took a position on whether Sweden should submit its Nato application or not. They voted no to this. There we have the facts in black and white.
Credibility is lacking when, as a Social Democrat, one stands here and criticizes our government base for a lack of commitment to Nato while simultaneously imagining forming a government with two parties that are opponents of Nato.
It is good that Markus Selin says he stands up against troll accounts in social media. But that naturally raises an outstanding question.
Can Markus Selin promise that his own party will stop using anonymous accounts on social media that spread dung about political opponents? That is exactly what his own party engages in through various companies wholly owned by the Social Democrats that pump out dung on social media.
One is allowed to do that; it is within the framework of freedom of speech. I think one should be allowed to do that, but I do not think one should stand in this speaker's chair and try to take a moral high ground that one is not even capable of living up to oneself.
(THIRD DEPUTY SPEAKER: I note that there is a wide range of opinions in the debate right now.)
Markus Selin (S)
Madam Speaker! Thank you for the efforts to manage this debate!
I want to return to my introduction and the basis of this debate. It is this non-paper. It is the discussion document that Bohlins government has submitted. It is about influence campaigns and about how to build a democratic shield.
My entire way of debating has been an attempt to illustrate that it is not possible to ignore domestic problems. The domestic problems, for example, entice Russia to exploit them against us. I have tried to illustrate that this has happened and that we have paid a very high price for it.
It is nothing wrong for a government to submit a discussion paper to the EU. But this has ended up in the wrong place. In the paper, the Authority for Psychological Defense is highlighted despite there being a meltdown here last year. Domestic problems are completely ignored when pointing at Russia. I mean that there is much to be done here, and I have heard nothing from State Secretary Bohlin about what the government intends to do to build up an immunity against more influence campaigns. I do not quite understand why I do not even get an acknowledgment in response from State Secretary Bohlin regarding this.
In conclusion, I don't have much more to say. This is serious, and this is for real.
The Sweden Democrats and the Moderates have partially, in different ways, contributed to worsening the situation. I have mentioned public service and folk education. Last but not least: It is pointless for the government to send a paper to the EU for discussion when they essentially ignore a handful of very important aspects that directly concern Sweden.
Minister för civilt försvar CARL-OSKAR BOHLIN (M)
Madam Speaker! I can only observe that Markus Selin has now had three opportunities to pose concrete questions about this non-paper, but he has simply not gotten to the point in this debate. He drifts off and dwells on almost everything else. It is my duty to try, so to speak, to answer the spoken word in this chamber and to try to catch what the member is actually after. It is probably not entirely clear for those who have listened to this debate.
I can state that we submitted the non-paper to provide Sweden's contribution regarding how we believe the Commission should design this democratic shield. It is about having the ability to resist information influence directed at the EU and member states from antagonistic states or state-like actors. But it is also about maintaining the perspective that this is a national matter, that is, not more centralization and not more supranationality. It is about being able to highlight best practice. There, the government very rightly highlights the Psychological Defence Authority.
Madam Speaker! It is actually not the Agency for Psychological Defense that represents the melting point in this context, but it is represented in another place in this debate.
Source: The Swedish Parliament. The speeches come from the open data of the Riksdag, translated into English by AI, which may contain errors.