STOCKHOLM - Sweden's new left-leaning red-green minority government has presented its first budget proposal (fiscal year 2015), which surprisingly includes a larger defense funding earmark than was expected. The proposed military allocation will total SEK4.16 billion ($574 million) over a four-year period, or roughly SEK1.04 billion ($144 million) annually.
Finance Minister for the Social Democrat-Green coalition government, Magdalena Andersson, stated that the administration took into account recommendations made back in May that the Swedish armed forces expand their capabilities. Those recommendations followed Russia's destabilization activities in Ukraine and Russia's recent actions in the Ukraine and a Russian military exercise in March 2013 that simulated an air attack on Sweden.
The previous centrist coalition government under Fredrik Reinfeldt had announced on April 22 that it planned to increase annual defense expenditures across the 10-year period through 2024. The rise, according to the Reinfeldt government statement, would occur gradually up to 2024, by which point the year-on-year nominal increase would total roughly SEK5.5 billion. What made this declaration interesting - or alternately disingenuous depending on one's view - is that the assumed trajectory called for the highest annual increase at the back end of the 10-year period, meaning the government presented a hypothetical for which it would almost assuredly no longer be in office to administer. Spending plans out to 10 years rarely hold firm due to a variety of factors, including economic swings, a nation's financial position, a change in government and alterations in the national security environment.
Despite the three minority parties in Reinfeldt's coalition government clamoring for higher levels of defense investment and Sweden's Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces, Army General Sverker Goransson, stating in January 2013 that the country's armed forces would only be able to hold off an outside attack for one week due to the reductions in the military and its budget, the Moderate Party leadership remained unfazed. Goransson's warning merely got a shrug from then-Defense Minister Karin Enstrom, who responded by saying that having such a defense capability was a reasonable ambition.
Finally, with elections approaching and capability gaps exposed, the Reinfeldt government gave in and presented its 10-year defense spending proposal. But the election resulted in the Reinfeldt government - suffering from voter backlash after eight years in power - being tossed out of office. In its place is the aforementioned minority government led by Stefan Lofven, leader of the center-left Social Democrats. As a minority government the Social Democrat-Green coalition must rely on outside support from the Left Party in parliament. That a left-tilting government would want to increase taxes and spend more taxpayer money is unsurprising - that they would also increase defense funding would appear, on the surface, to be the eye-raising aspect of their initial budget.
But with a downsized military now facing multiple pressure points ranging from airspace violations to potential cyber-attacks to the recent suspected submarine penetration in Swedish waters it should be expected that the new government desires to funnel increased state expenditure towards defense. While in political opposition - their longest-ever absence from power in 80 years - the Social Democrats argued that defense spending was insufficient and during the past year called for the strengthening of Sweden's military presence on the Baltic island of Gotland.
Currently Sweden allocates SEK47.19 billion ($6.5 billion) to its military/security budget (which includes funding for the Coast Guard, plus contingency measures such as natural disaster relief, and crisis management and prevention). Under the proposal laid out by Andersson on October 23 the defense budget will increase each year over the four-year stretch, starting with a boost of SEK680 million in 2015, SEK800 million in 2016, SEK1.24 billion in 2017 and then SEK1.44 billion for 2018.
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