Åkesson says Sweden Democrats will negotiate across blocs

Sweden Democrats leader Jimmie Åkesson says his party will sit in opposition but remain open to negotiations with both the left and the right. He told SVT’s Aktuellt on Tuesday that the party would not make budget agreements in advance.

Åkesson said the party, which received 17 per cent of the vote, would have influence “one way or another”. It could choose which proposals to support based on what best served its policies, he said, adding that this did not mean always backing the centre-right.

The party’s starting point would be to submit its own budget. “We are not a support party; we are an opposition party,” Åkesson said. But he added that the Sweden Democrats were willing to negotiate if other parties wanted support for their policies in parliament.

Åkesson criticised the Centre Party’s approach of waiting for the red-green and centre-right blocs to present comprehensive proposals, calling it “backwards”. He said the Centre Party now had to choose which side to support, but declined to predict what it would do.

He said an early election seemed unlikely because many parties had too much at stake, but the Sweden Democrats were not afraid of one. The party lost ground in the election, he said, so an early vote could offer a chance to make up for it.