Swedish Social Democrats Split: 2 Votes For, 1 Against, 2 Undecided
Yesterday’s announcement from Sweden’s Social Democrats exposed a split in the party. On one side are Marita Ulvskog and Jytte Guteland. On the other side are MEPs Anna Hedh, and Aleksander Gabelic. In the middle, Olle Ludvigsson.
Two weeks ago, they all wrote jointly that “we have always been against articles 11 and 13”, but clearly something’s changed.
As MEPs hosted the press this morning, the mood was tense. They repeatedly insist that the atmosphere is good, and that they’re able to think and vote differently. But the tension is obvious.
In an interview afterwards with the three MEPs who are critical or undecided, the split becomes clear. Hedh, who has been most critical, explains that the party group has a shared stance of voting against Articles 11 and 13, but if that criticism falls, vote yes to the directive as a whole.
“But it’s not the case that Olle will be voting yes to Articles 11 and 13”, says Hede as Olle Ludvigsson interrupts, “yes, it is”, he says. “Oh really? OK”, comes the response from Hedh who then turns away, shakes her head and is visibly annoyed. The press secretary standing behind them gestures carefully with his hands to calm down.
Anna Hedh’s irritation is within reason: this is an issue on which the party has flipped, and tried to whip its members into line.
Perhaps the party’s change of heart came when Sweden’s Social Democrat-led government backed away from its critical approach* to the Directive at the last minute, approving it* at the Council of Ministers in February. The party’s tone then changed to no longer wanting to take a stand or comment at all on how they viewed the Directive. Despite repeated questions and promises of a decision, the lid was on tight. Morgan Johansson, Minister of Justice for the Swedish government, began retweeting copyright organisations’ opinion pieces. Other Swedish MPs were silent.
That was until, suddenly, Anna Hedh added her name to an amendment to completely delete Article 13. She still wasn’t able to give public comment on her approach, the press secretary announced.
This weekend, the Social Democrats gathered in Örebro for their party conference. Several MPs and even Minister of Justice Johansson took Hedh aside, trying to convince her to vote yes and in line with the government. Anna Hedh took this badly. She’s been on the party’s list of European Parliament candidates for the last three elections, but before this election she was removed. Do Swedish MPs and ministers suddenly know better than her? A source tells us this made her furious.
This is why Hedh shakes her head at Ludvigsson’s response. This is why she turned away. Party colleagues who were critical of the Directive only a few weeks ago are now for it, or are considering voting yes.
Olle Ludvigsson continues to explain that he’s uncertain. That he’s made many calls to get support and advice on how to vote. All of the members state that they’ve been subjected to heavy lobbying. Especially Aleksander Gabelic. Not so much via email, but the pressure in other channels, mostly from cultural creators, “I don’t think I’ve ever experienced anything quite like this. It’s a very unfortunate debate that pushes people into opposite corners. It’s an unfortunate situation to end up in, and it’s not very Swedish to not be able to discuss the matter in a better way than either you’re with us or against us”.
Gabelic has noticed pressure from the ‘no’ side through email, but thinks it’s distressing to see that even from the ‘yes’ side, he’d be painted as being against cultural creators if he cited freedom of speech concerns in voting no.
“You’ll get phone calls during the evening telling you to vote one way or the other. In such a tense climate, even the ‘yes’ side are activated. I’d be comfortable saying that even the ‘yes’ side has the resources to lobby actively”, Gabelic says.
Hedh adds, “they’re able to lobby quite differently than Kalle, Frida and Jesper can from their bedrooms at home”.
Gabelic clarifies that he’ll vote against Article 13, but that what he’s having to decide between is whether to vote no or abstain on the whole proposal if Article 13 remains.
Olle Ludvigsson is also skeptical about parts of the Directive, but has confidence in what’s come to light during trilogue discussions.
It could be that your vote becomes decisive?
“It could be. But as I said, I haven’t quite fully decided, I’ll make a decision today”.
So why not vote against the parts of the Directive you think are problematic so that you can go back and work on it later?
“Hmm, “go back and work on it”, I’m not sure how possible that is, the whole thing will more likely be defeated in the end, I don’t know”.
But in practice it’d be good for it to go back to trilogue to secure new compromises?
“Yes, that could be the case. Then it’s within the realms of the next term and how that Parliament will look is a completely different matter”.
This piece is funded by a Kickstarter campaign to monitor the European Parliament’s Copyright Directive proposal during its final stage of voting. Text and images are supplied under CC BY, a license that makes it free to share and redistribute wherever you want, provided you link back here with appropriate credit.
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