The European Union’s new year begins with the Swedish presidency, propelling Europe towards the European elections with a government that represents the new generation of sovereignism: the alliance between the moderate and extreme right. In the 2019 European elections, the ‘pro-Europeans versus sovereignists’ scheme had held, but today this distance has completely collapsed: in order not to die electorally, the centre-right has made a pact with the extreme right, in Stockholm as well as in Brussels. The overall picture of the Swedish presidency should be as follows: maximum freedom for business, minimum investment in European political integration, aggressive line on migrants and rights. All three of these points describe well how the centre-right (EPP) and the extreme right (Ecr) can hold together in the era of ‘sovereignism 2.0’. Formally, the government pact in Sweden includes moderates, Christian Democrats and liberals, with the ‘Sweden Democrats‘ as a partner party outside the government. But this is a party that received 20 per cent of the vote, so its influence will be considerable and will also have an effect on the rotating presidency in the EU: first of all, the government agreement (‘Tidöavtalet‘) expressly stipulates that ‘in EU-related matters, the government’s external partner must be informed of the contents of the preparatory memoranda’, so the extreme right will strongly influence migration dossiers. Anti-migrant rhetoric is a leitmotif and has already permeated the founding pact of the new executive that intends to ‘change the paradigm’ in terms of reception: surveillance and use of biometric data on foreigners, more repatriations, expulsions for misconduct. The language of the extreme right becomes a government priority and this attitude will also condition the EU semester, as the Swedish presidency has among its priorities to ‘unblock and move forward the negotiations on the new migration and asylum pact’. If the Commission draft already pushed more on returns than reception, with Stockholm at the helm the fusion of sovereignist rhetoric and government choices will be ripe. But there are also less obvious points, which may condition the direction taken by the European Union: the annexes to the Swedish government agreement (not officially published, but filtered to the public), show Sverigedemokraterna‘s intention to control some important climate and biodiversity dossiers, in order to compromise them downwards. A serious drift, when one considers that Sweden is considered a country at the forefront of the green transition. Lastly, a theme that easily unites EPP and conservatives should be mentioned, namely the need to present a common front against Russia, with Sweden’s entry into NATO as a priority. The year 2023 beginning with the Swedish presidency, embodying the alliance between the right-wing parties, is therefore a key fact for a Europe that is facing multiple challenges and crises as it prepares for the 2024 vote. Between 2024 and 2025, after the Spanish and Belgian semesters, Sweden’s leadership will pass to the presidencies of Hungary and Poland: a timetable that is a great metaphor for the direction Europe is taking.
