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Swedish parliament passes controversial budget bill for 2020

The Local Sweden
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Swedish parliament passes controversial budget bill for 2020
What does the new budget mean for you? Photo: Fredrik Sandberg/TT

The Swedish parliament has voted yes to the budget framework for 2020. Here's what that means for you and what happens next.

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This is a not entirely uncontroversial budget.

It is the first budget created as part of the so-called January Agreement, a cross-bloc collaboration between the Social Democrat-Green coalition government and two of Sweden's opposition parties – the Liberals and the Centre Party – which means that for each party, it includes both sweeteners and bitter pills.

Here are the main points that may be relevant to The Local's readers in Sweden.

The total expenditure framework amounts to 1,062 billion kronor. Of this, around 20 billion kronor is earmarked for various reforms that the government and the two other parties want to implement.

These include increased government grants to municipalities, more money for law and order, cash incentives for industry and municipalities to invest in climate measures, abolishing an austerity tax on high earners and cutting taxes for pensioners earning more than 17,000 kronor a month. And the measures have been both praised and heavily criticized.

The estimated revenues amount to 1,116 billion kronor in the 2020 draft state budget, or in other words a surplus of 47 billion.

The exact details will not be clear until the next step of the long budget approval process, however. Parliament will decide in December exactly how to allocate the money in each of the spending areas.

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