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Today in Sweden: A roundup of the latest news on Tuesday​on April 29, 2025 at 6:40 am

Liberal leader Johan Pehrson resigns, Scania rules out Northvolt acquisition, and other news from Sweden on Tuesday.

​Liberal leader Johan Pehrson resigns, Scania rules out Northvolt acquisition, and other news from Sweden on Tuesday.   

Liberal leader Johan Pehrson resigns, Scania rules out Northvolt acquisition, and other news from Sweden on Tuesday.

Swedish education minister and Liberal leader Johan Pehrson resigns

Liberal leader Johan Pehrson said it was time for him to step down at a press conference on Monday afternoon, with less than two years to go until the next general election.

He told reporters it was his decision, but Aftonbladet reports that several regional boards of the struggling party had demanded Pehrson’s resignation and that a crisis meeting had been held as late as last weekend, according to unnamed sources speaking to the tabloid.

The party has long failed to improve its polling numbers, with two surveys from April having them at 2.5 and 2.8 percent.

Those are the worst figures of any Swedish party, almost half of its result in the 2022 election and well below the parliamentary threshold of 4 percent.

Swedish vocabulary: att avgå – to resign

Number of people on unemployment benefits shoots up 

The number of people receiving a-kassa unemployment benefits was up 19 percent in the first three months of the year, bringing the total to 176,000 people, according to new figures from Sveriges a-kassor, the umbrella organisation for Sweden’s unemployment insurance funds. 

“We can conclude that unemployment is the highest in ten years, and almost on par with what it was during the pandemic,” Tomas Eriksson, from the organisation, said in a press release.

There are 24 different unemployment benefits funds in Sweden and seven out of ten Swedes are currently members.

Swedish vocabulary: i nivå med – on par with/on a level with 

GDP figures undershoot expectations

Sweden’s economy grew by 1.1 percent in the first quarter of 2025 compared with the same period a year earlier, according to a preliminary estimate from Statistics Sweden. That figure fell short of analysts’ expectations, which Bloomberg had pegged at an average of 1.7 percent. 

“Economic activity picked up in March, bringing quarterly GDP growth roughly in line with the final quarter of 2024,” said Mattias Kain Wyatt, an economist at Statistics Sweden. 

Swedish vocabulary: förväntat – expected 

Scania rules out Northvolt acquisition 

The truck manufacturer Scania has said it does not intend to take over the factory and research centre in Skellefteå or Västerås owned by the bankrupt battery company Northvolt to save them from closure. 

“Our role is primarily to be a customer,” the company’s chief executive, Christian Levin, told the TT news agency. “We continue to work for and hope that someone wants to step forward and take over ownership of both the fine factory in Skellefteå and the laboratory and development departments in Västerås.”

He said the company “continues to participate in discussions” with several parties who are interested in stepping in. “But our role will not be as an owner of this going forward.”

Swedish vocabulary: en kund – a customer

Four teens locked up over attack on Israeli business in Sweden

A Swedish court jailed four teenagers for their involvement in a shooting that targeted an Israeli military technology firm in Gothenburg.

A 13-year-old boy opened fire on the entrance to an office of Elbit Systems on October 10th, 2024.

He was arrested shortly after but was not charged since he was below 15, Sweden’s age of criminal responsibility.

No one was injured in the shooting.

However, the Gothenburg district court sentenced four others on Monday for their roles in recruiting the young boy, supplying the gun and organising the shooting.

Swedish vocabulary: en skottlossning – a shooting  

 

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