Response to interpellations 2023/24:197 and 220 regarding the lack of electricity support for municipalities and regions

Energi- och näringsministern Ebba Busch (KD)

Madam Speaker! Aida Birinxhiku and Fredrik Olovsson have both asked whether I intend to take any measures to prevent municipalities and regions from losing millions in electricity support.

The questions from the interpellants have their starting point in the regulations in the ordinance on electricity support to companies. According to the ordinance, companies and other legal entities in southern and central Sweden can apply for electricity support as compensation for the skyrocketing electricity prices during the end of 2022. In order to be able to introduce this electricity support, it was required that Sweden submitted an application to the EU Commission to obtain an approval that the Swedish regulation for the electricity support complied with the EU framework for state aid.

For the assessment of the electricity support, temporary state aid rules decided by the EU Commission were used. The provision in the EU regulatory framework that was used means that the electricity support to a business operator or legal entity engaged in primary production of agricultural products may not exceed 2.5 million kronor. The EU Commission approved Sweden's application, and it also appears from this decision that a condition for the approval is that electricity support to a business operator or legal entity engaged in primary production of agricultural products does not exceed 2.5 million kronor.

Since this is an area regulated under EU law and also has a condition in the decision directed at Sweden, the Swedish regulation must comply with the European Commission's decision. It will therefore be the Swedish Tax Agency and, if the authority's decision is appealed, the courts that must make the final interpretation of the provision's scope and who are affected by the provision.

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Aida Birinxhiku (S)

Madam Speaker! Thank you to the Minister for the answer!

There have been many turns regarding the government's promised electricity support, to say the least. The government and the Sweden Democrats promised that the electricity support would be in place on November 1, 2022. That was not the case, however. The proposal for electricity support to companies was withdrawn in December, which resulted in a KU report in March. And it was not reported to the EU Commission until April. After much back and forth, the minister and the government announced that the electricity support could be applied for from May 30, that is, almost seven months after the support was supposed to be in place. But all's well that ends well, both the minister and I hoped.

Recently, however, it has been reported that several municipalities and regions, which are also covered by the electricity support for companies, risk losing millions in electricity support. In brief, it is about the fact that they, due to a greenhouse or a nature-based gymnasium, are regarded as agricultural producers according to the government's electricity support ordinance.

In my constituency, both Region Halland and Falkenberg Municipality have been affected. My home municipality, Falkenberg, risks losing 16 million in electricity support, all this because of an extremely small municipal greenhouse used to grow plants for the municipality's parks.

Madam Speaker! This could not reasonably have been the government's intention. It could not have been the government's intention that municipalities and regions should lose almost all of their electricity support because they have a greenhouse under their own management or provide a nature-based gymnasium to educate the future workforce in the important green industries.

It is obvious that the government, which itself has drafted the electricity support ordinance, has failed to take this issue into account. The problem is not that there is a provision regarding agricultural producers in accordance with the EU's state aid framework. The problem is that the government has not acted to ensure that this does not affect municipalities and regions in an unreasonable way, for example by setting a limitation on how much the primary agricultural activity should apply. SKR also flagged this in its consultation response.

So, this debate is not about the authorities' decisions in individual cases, but about the government's design and management of the electricity support.

Madam Speaker! Municipal and regional representatives of various party colors have signed a letter to the Minister demanding an answer. They emphasize in the letter that this hits particularly hard in a difficult economic situation. It concerns millions that have been counted on in economic planning and which are also needed in an already strained economy. The state grants that the government has injected into the budget are far from sufficient. And now the situation is further worsened by the fact that the government and the Sverigedemokrater are also not delivering the electricity support that was promised.

My question to Minister Ebba Busch is therefore whether she intends to take any measures to ensure that the municipalities and regions that have been affected eventually receive their promised electricity support.

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Fredrik Olovsson (S)

Madam Speaker! Thank you, Minister, for the answer!

The government's handling of the electricity support has been marred by mistakes and broken promises. Time and again, what was promised before the election has been betrayed after the election. Now we have reached the part of the support that concerns how municipalities and regions could also receive help with the high costs. This case is no exception either, but instead, it becomes confusion and problems.

The municipal and regional politicians were deeply dissatisfied with the design even before they knew what the outcomes would be. Some of them, of course, believed the promises that an electricity price cap would be introduced. That never happened. Others questioned why there should be a cap of exactly 20 million for these activities, which primarily affects larger municipalities and regions.

Now many are upset that it is becoming worse than was feared from the beginning. The government's design means that, for example, my region, Region Sörmland, will lose many millions. Instead of 20 million in support, it will be some single million that ends up in the regional treasury. And that treasury is truly echoing empty already.

Region Sörmland suffers, just like many other regions, from the government's overall economic policy and insufficient state grants. The region has a deficit of well over 1 billion kronor. They have maneuvered to lay off 700 employees. It is also a region governed by, among others, Christian Democrats and Moderates.

I am not saying that 20 million kronor in electricity support fundamentally changes that picture. It naturally does not. A completely different policy for healthcare and for support to municipalities and regions than the one the government is pursuing would have been needed to manage it. But it is, of course, still a strange signal to a region like Sörmland that healthcare will also lose out on these resources, when every krona is quite obviously important.

In Sörmland's case, the reason why one does not receive full electricity support is the nature-based vocational high school Öknaskolan. There, among other things, young people are educated for jobs in the green industries. This, of course, concerns agriculture and the horticultural industry. These are expensive educations. But they provide very good conditions for getting jobs in those industries. And it is, of course, very important for the industries to have access to that competence.

At the same time, we know that there are nature-based education programs that are almost entirely theoretical. That is, they are not at Öknaskolan. There, they have invested fully. There is everything needed to be able to learn how to manage a farm. In the other variants, one is rather looking to earn money from the quite high tuition fees which are the result of there being a few, mostly public actors, who manage this very well. There, too little happens, and there the government rather looks the other way. When it comes to the regions' opportunity to receive electricity support, one does not want to do anything there either, as it appears from the answer to the interpellation.

I mean, just like Aida Birinxhiku, that it cannot be the government's intention that one should not be able to receive full electricity support because one has a nature-based gymnasium. This is, after all, a minimal operation in the region's entire operation, despite the great weight that I have just told you it has. It would, of course, be possible to design the regulatory framework in a more purposeful way so that Region Sörmland would also receive its electricity support. I think that the people of Sörmland have well earned that.

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Lena Johansson (S)

Madam Speaker! I join the interpellor and previous speakers in response to the Minister's answer.

I come from Västmanland. There we have a municipality called Sala. It is one of the municipalities that has been unfairly affected by the distribution of the electricity support. Sala is a municipality that has approximately 23,000 inhabitants, and it has, just like many of Sweden's municipalities, a tough time regarding expenses. Sala is responsible, just like other municipalities, for the municipality's healthcare, school, and elderly care - that is, the municipal core missions.

There are many good things about Sala. One of them is that the municipality operates Ösby Naturbruksgymnasium. They do so in the form of a municipal company. In today's Sweden, we face challenges regarding skills supply in many professional groups. Ösby specifically contributes to our future skills supply in, for example, the agricultural sector. It therefore becomes a bit extra tricky when Sala municipality applies for electricity support of 7.3 million but is granted 2.1 million precisely against the background of operating Ösby.

Previous speakers have spoken about electricity support for companies and industries and § 18 of the ordinance. I do not intend to stop there. But among my fellow politicians in Sala, there is, among others, Amanda Lindblad, who is the chairman of the municipal executive board. She says: I lead a municipality, not an agricultural area.

It hangs in some way like a cloak over the entire situation. Amanda has, together with several municipal and regional politicians, both Social Democrats and Moderates, submitted a petition to the minister where they write, among other things: "As political representatives, we did not expect to have to sign a letter to the Swedish government where we are forced to explain that we represent neither agriculture nor companies. We are municipalities and regions within the framework of the Swedish administrative model."

Amanda Lindblad pointed out as early as October 23 in a letter to the Minister that this situation had arisen. Against that background, I asked Amanda what dialogue has been held with her regarding the issues. She says that no dialogue has been established. That is indeed unfortunate.

My question to the Minister is, of course: Does the Minister see this? Does the Minister intend to take measures to prevent Sala municipality and other municipalities and regions from losing out on the millions of kronor that were announced earlier?

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Azra Muranovic (S)

Madam Speaker! I come from Jönköpings län. Region Jönköpings län is yet another region that has been harmed by the government's promises. The region applied for the maximum amount of 20 million kronor but received barely 1.9 million kronor. The justification there was also that the region was judged to be engaged in primary agriculture.

How can it go so wrong? How has it been communicated to municipalities and regions that for the assessment of the electricity support, temporary state aid rules decided by the EU Commission are being used? I wonder above all how it has been communicated to the regions and municipalities that the electricity support was conditional and that they could be hit this hard, that they could actually be assessed as primary agricultural enterprises by operating nature-based high schools, having greenhouses, or having animals out on pasture in their nature reserves.

I wonder if the government understands how bad it is for the municipalities and the regions, because between 2022 and 2023, prices and wages increased by an average of 6.7 percent in the municipalities and 8 percent in the regions. With one hand, they gave a state grant of 6 billion kronor, and with the other, they took away from the targeted state grants to the general state grants, which means that municipalities and regions are already running at a deficit today because of the state grants. On top of this, they add a promise of electricity support, which does not work.

Does the government understand how this affects all citizens in these municipalities and regions and, above all, the welfare ambition that was had from last year to this year?

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Energi- och näringsministern Ebba Busch (KD)

Madam Speaker! A lie that is repeated many times does not become any truer for that. We have many times accounted for the issues surrounding the electricity support. I repeat it in this chamber, in press conferences and interviews, and on our website. As party leader, I have explicitly stated that one could not assume that one would have any money in the account before Christmas. The Social Democrats can continue as best they wish with advocating a position that is untrue. It does not become any truer for that.

I stand by the KU report. It was about it going too fast. I do not think it went too fast. I would have gladly ensured that the Swedish households had received the electricity support earlier.

This is an electricity support that is many times larger than what S managed in a government position, and I stand by that. But it is a very complicated situation where it is, therefore, not possible to compensate for the fact that one, with open eyes, laid down 3,000 megawatts of planned power production in southern Sweden and stood as a question mark when Sweden was hit hard by high electricity prices. It is the hunt for the missing megawatts.

We are now discussing millions that it is very regrettable that individual municipalities and regions have not received a share of. But if one zooms out, that is not the big problem, but the politics that has brought us to this situation.

I have myself been a municipal politician for many years, longer than the nearly nine years that I have been party leader. I know what it is like to sit in a committee that is to decide on LVU, the compulsory placement of children and young people, where a single decision can overturn the entire municipality's planned budget. That is how it looks in many municipalities and regions. It is a very tough situation.

This is also the reason why the single largest priority in the government's budget is support for the core activities of municipalities and regions. We will continue to prioritize this moving forward as well. It will still be necessary to make very tough prioritizations for them to balance the budgets moving forward. It is about difficult trade-offs, but the government will do everything we can to support them.

Now I will move on to the question of the electricity support that was to reach the municipalities. There were no such specific promises made regarding that, but I am nevertheless glad that we succeeded. The provision in the EU regulatory framework that was used and which made it possible for us to still get this out as quickly as possible meant that the electricity support to businesses or legal entities engaged in primary production of agricultural products may not exceed 2.5 million kronor.

Madam Speaker! If the question is posed to me as to whether I consider that these nine municipalities and regions that are affected – and which I truly feel for because I know how strongly a municipality can be affected – can be said to primarily engage in agricultural activities, my answer is no. Do I intend to step in to any individual authorities and say that they have interpreted it incorrectly? No. This will now be up to the courts to decide.

I have no problem saying that this is very unfortunate. It is not compatible with common sense that this has become the outcome, and I regret that.

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Aida Birinxhiku (S)

Madam Speaker! Thank you to the Minister for the answer!

Let me again begin by stating that this debate is about the government's design and management of the electricity support. It is clear and distinct that the government's design of the support has affected municipalities and regions in an unreasonable way, and now the question is about the government's continued management of the support, that is, whether there is an intention to do something about it. When it becomes this wrong, the government must promptly take measures. The least one can request would be that the minister himself answered the letter from the local representatives and initiated the dialogue that they had hoped for.

I think the Minister's answer in this debate reminds me of the answer I received during the Parliament's question time a while ago. Instead of giving an update on the electricity support, the Minister replied that she thought it was "stomach-strong" that the question was asked by a Social Democrat who, according to the Minister, has left behind care queues and gang shootings.

The Minister may indeed choose to accuse me of both the one and the other instead of answering my question, but that statement is not particularly reassuring for the affected municipalities and regions. On the contrary, it shows that the government has no plan for how the issue should be handled, and furthermore, it hinders a somewhat constructive debate on the government's actions moving forward.

I hope that the Minister takes this opportunity to give a clear statement to the municipalities and regions that have been affected. I am quite certain that this is preferable to claiming that others bear the responsibility for an election promise that one has issued oneself.

Madam Speaker! Already last year, the government and the Sweden Democrats chose to significantly underfund the welfare system. This year, the funds being provided can hardly compensate for the cost crisis that municipalities and regions are facing. In my home municipality, Falkenberg, people are struggling to protect schools, elderly care, and jobs when the government's state grants are by no means sufficient. The cost crisis naturally also hits the healthcare system in Halland hard. Regional representatives across party lines have warned of cuts if the government does not provide more resources.

In our latest budget proposal, we Social Democrats proposed a doubling of the investments in healthcare. For the municipal sector, our proposal would mean a reinforcement of a total of 26 billion kronor. It is clear that it would have made a difference for Falkenberg and Halland and other municipalities and regions around the country. Something that also would have made a difference is obviously if they had received their promised electricity support instead of losing billions of kronor that have been budgeted for.

Madam Speaker! I want to repeat my question to Minister Ebba Busch. It is a simple yes-or-no question. Will the Minister take measures to ensure that the municipalities and regions that have been affected will eventually receive their promised electricity support?

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Fredrik Olovsson (S)

Madam Speaker! It is entirely correct that a lie does not become truer simply because it is repeated.

There is no doubt that several of the parties that are now part of the government even promised an electricity price cap before the election. It has, of course, not been implemented. Then the Prime Minister promised that an electricity subsidy would be introduced by November 1. That never happened either. It is a fact, and everyone knows it except possibly Ebba Busch, who for some reason thinks that the debate regarding the municipalities' electricity subsidy going forward should be about history. We are happy to discuss that, but now we prefer to focus on the situation that has arisen because the ordinance governing the authorities is written in the way that Ebba Busch and the government have decided.

We think it would be appropriate to try to do something about the situation. It is not possible to just shrug your shoulders when several municipalities and regions have ended up in this situation.

It is possible that it feels attractive and easy to refer to authorities, wait for some kind of case law and judicial application and hope that the whole thing might eventually subside, so that one avoids taking responsibility for it. That is not going to happen. There are far too many Social Democrats in this chamber for the issue to simply disappear. The responsible thing would have been to sit down and try to solve the problem together with the municipalities and regions that have pointed it out. It cannot be impossible. More difficult things have, after all, been carried out.

In the budget for 2024, half a billion has been allocated in a grant for electricity support. According to the policy, it will not be about municipalities and regions at all. In view of this, I have two questions that could very well be answered here.

Would it be possible for the Minister to imagine using a portion of the allocated funds for these or other municipalities and regions, so that they can receive a share of the money during the next year? We know that they are having a very difficult time. Could it become relevant to use the appropriation in that way, and could one imagine even expanding it, so that the welfare sector also receives a share?

There is no doubt that a region such as mine, Region Sörmland, has a huge need for new resources. The state grants that are nevertheless allocated do not come close to matching the great needs that the people of Sörmland have for health and medical care. 700 employees will likely have to leave the operations, when we instead would need to hire more to shorten queues and provide more people with care and treatment. Nor would these funds, which are in the appropriation for electricity support for next year, help fully, but could they not at least provide some relief? That is my question to the Minister.

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Lena Johansson (S)

Madam Speaker! I thank the Minister for the answer. Above all, I thank her for admitting that it did not turn out so great; that is how I perceive it. It is good when one can say that it did not turn out as one had envisioned.

The Minister is known for his humorous phrasing and his imagery in the form of falukorv and other things. At one point, the Minister said that one should slice the falukorv slice by slice. Here, the falukorv has been sliced slice by slice, but it is unevenly sliced. There are thinner slices for certain municipalities. I hope that the Minister will take this to heart and find an opportunity to start a dialogue with the affected municipalities. It is not at all the case that Sala municipality, which I took as an example, has lower costs or better conditions. Sweden's municipalities and regions are in a tough situation. I know that the Minister is aware of that. But is it really 130 cows that should decide whether one should get to participate in the electricity support or not? Here, I believe that even the Minister feels that an intervention is needed. I hope that Amanda Lindblad will hear from the Minister at some point.

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Azra Muranovic (S)

Madam Speaker! Region Jönköpings län was one of the regions that, together with municipalities, signed the letter to the Minister for Energy and Industry. They requested a dialogue on how they can be compensated for the missing electricity support. In the response from the State Secretary to the letter, it is referred to that the Swedish Tax Agency is making its assessment. One can then turn to a court and have their case examined there. It does not quite feel like any great interest for the sake of the municipalities and regions can be interpreted into this brief response. I really must express that.

I wonder: Is this all that the municipalities and regions have to expect? Will the minister and the government do anything, or will they sit with their arms crossed and wait for the judgments to start falling in like some kind of finger-pointing? Will they make an effort to at least show interest in the municipalities and regions? Or even better: Will they resolve the situation in a constructive dialogue together with them? Will there be any proposal for a solution from the minister? How can one trust it when one promise after another is broken on a rolling basis?

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Energi- och näringsministern Ebba Busch (KD)

Madam Speaker! I try to be constructive where it is possible to be constructive. I want to meet halfway where it is possible to meet. I would also like to talk mostly about the future. But I will probably continue to be quite firm that words that I have never uttered should not be put in my mouth. I have been very clear about what we have promised and what I have promised on behalf of my party and have not.

I also think it is important that one can stand by the fact that one has changed one's mind. I give a hundred percent credit that the model we presented was more of an actual price ceiling, and I stand by the fact that we have changed our minds regarding which model we have advocated for and what we have then actually implemented. One of the factors has been what is possible to implement in the shortest possible time. There, we have had two scales. It has not been an easy decision, but I stand by the very clear change from what I ran on in the election to what we then implemented. I have explained this well to the Swedish people.

To look forward, or rather to look at the present: This is very complicated in that it is regulated within EU law, which I, as an individual minister, cannot override. The decision on state aid assessment that we have received back to Sweden from the EU, Madam Speaker, is furthermore conditional, and the Swedish regulation must comply with the European Commission's decision. It is crystal clear in its wording – when a business operator or legal entity carries out primary production of agricultural products, it may not exceed 2.5 million kronor.

It is therefore the Swedish Tax Agency, and if the agency's decision is appealed, the courts that must make the final interpretation of the provision's scope and who is affected by it. Those who know me as a pragmatist who likes to meet and find solutions – people listen to each other, come up with proposals and find a smooth solution – I think can understand how much I agonize over the fact that I cannot step in and just steer a solution into place.

With that said, I want to answer one of the very specific follow-up questions that has come up in the debate, Madam Speaker. It concerns whether it is now possible to use the outstanding funds in the account for capacity fees. This is a question that we have looked into. Regarding the funds that we have used from the government and state side to pay out in the form of electricity support to households, businesses, municipalities, associations, and organizations, the fact is that we actually cannot use those funds in this way at all. It is individual crisis measures from the EU level that have made it possible for us to use these funds in this way. When we have looked at whether it would be possible to use these funds in some other way and in some way extract a portion, so that this still reaches the municipalities, the answer so far has been no. We would be committing a rule violation that risks costing Sweden dearly at the other end, or we would risk that the funds we pay out to municipalities would then have to be withdrawn.

A letter was submitted to us on December 7 of this year with several signatories. They received a written response the following week, which one of the members referred to.

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Aida Birinxhiku (S)

Madam Speaker! Thank you, Minister, for this debate! As previously mentioned, this is not my first interpellation debate regarding the promised electricity support. But now I stand here in the rostrum again, nearly a year after my and the Minister's first debate, and have to ask the same question again, namely when the promised electricity support will arrive. Several municipalities and regions are still waiting for a decision.

I am somewhat unsure of what is most remarkable in this debate – whether it is that several municipalities and regions are affected in this way and lose almost all of their electricity support, or that the government does not seem to want to do anything about this. This debate is not just about the electricity support. It is about the fact that the government and the Sweden Democrats are failing to deliver when it comes to perhaps their most important election promise. And it is about the fact that the government and the Sweden Democrats are not supporting municipalities and regions in an economically difficult time.

Therefore, it is still my hope that municipalities and regions across the country receive the resources they need, that the municipalities and regions that have been affected, including Region Halland and Falkenbergs kommun, receive their promised electricity support, and that this will be my and the Minister's final interpellations debate on the handling of the electricity support.

(Applause)

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Fredrik Olovsson (S)

Madam Speaker! I can also sign off on what Aida Birinxhiku concluded with: This may well be the last interpellation debate on the electricity support. But it is not a promise – we shall see how this process ends.

We have talked quite a bit about municipalities and regions and the difficult issues that exist there. We shall turn to other cabinet ministers regarding that, not least the Minister for Finance and those in the government who have responsibility for healthcare. But everyone can do their part and pull their weight.

When the electricity subsidy was presented, it was also launched as a support for municipalities and regions. But many of them, not least Sörmland, which is the region that is perhaps worst off and makes the largest savings in proportion to its size, would really need to receive these funds as well. It is not strange that one feels a bit cheated when ministers who have presented the budget where these funds are included use them as reasons why other state grants are not needed. And then one does not get those funds – it is clear that one becomes upset then.

I also posed a question in my previous post regarding the electricity support that is in the budget for 2024. One cannot do as one pleases with capacity fees; that is clear. But in the budget, there are 500 million for electricity support during the next year. This is not directed at municipalities and regions, as it is described in the budget bill. The question is whether these funds can be used for what they were allocated for. I believe it would be a point, now that we are discussing the electricity support here, to receive a response from the Minister. Will these funds be used, and would you in the government be open to using them also for municipalities and regions, which have a very difficult situation?

(Applause)

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Energi- och näringsministern Ebba Busch (KD)

Madam Speaker! If anyone ever decides to make a series for Netflix or some other production company or some other streaming service – there are many different ones out there – we at least know three people who will be the main characters, namely the interpellants Fredrik Olovsson and Aida Birinxhiku and myself.

Let us hope that it does not happen. My hope too is that we can begin to see the end of this. But I want to be honest and say that I am not sure about that. I also want, Madam Speaker, to turn to the nine municipalities and regions that may be taking part in this debate and say two things.

Firstly, this shows why our elected representatives in this chamber, the Riksdag, have geographical distribution. One can raise these kinds of issues regardless of what one's home constituency is, but the parliamentary setup and the representation we have in this chamber demonstrate something very fine and important. I think this in itself is an important point to make.

I also want to emphasize that if I were to see an opportunity to realize this, I would gladly do so. The will is there. But this is an incredibly complicated patchwork of crisis measure upon crisis measure, to solve a fundamental problem that one cannot address here but which we have constructive conversations about in other contexts.

Nevertheless, many municipalities are now in a tough situation ahead of Christmas. I acknowledge and see it, and I regret it. It is clear that this was not the intention, and I want to be clear and stand by that.

With this said - 10 billion plus 6 billion is what we allocate to municipalities and regions for not least the core of the welfare system. This compensates for this, but it means that one does not get as much in relation to others. We will continue to prioritize this and await the continuation that the decision now given will have.

The interpellation debate was hereby concluded.

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