BRUSSELS
Sweden’s center-left government is on the brink of collapse, less then three months after it came to power.
The government is expected to lose a vote on its budget proposal on Wednesday. Should that happen, a crisis and snap elections may follow.
The budget proposed by the Social Democrats and its leader Prime Minister Stefan Lövfen calls not only for raising taxes and spending on welfare and jobs, but also to cut tax payments for two thirds of Sweden’s retired population.
But because Löfven has failed to reach an agreement with the center-right opposition and the far-right Sweden Democrats for these proposals, the budget is likely to be blocked in the vote on Wednesday.
Analysts noted that the country has a center-left government without a center-left majority. The Social Democrats have only 158 seats in parliament out of 349 total seats in the legislature.
Failure to pass the budget could prompt the government to call snap elections, according to Löfven.
"We may call snap elections later, when the constitution allows. We could also resign and there are other alternatives," Löfven told reporters after a late night meeting on Tuesday.
The center-right opposition is against raising taxes on high net worth individuals. The far-right Sweden Democrats, which became the ‘king-makers’ in the Swedish Parliament after September’s elections, is expected to take sides with the center-right opposition on not raising taxed for the wealthy.
One of the reasons behind the Sweden Democrats' increasing popularity is its stance against immigration in Sweden. The country is expecting at least 80,000 asylum seekers in 2014, according to the Swedish migration board.
Sweden has offered permanent residence to all Syrians fleeing the conflict, and has the highest rate of asylum applications per capita of any EU country.
The party has vowed to reduce immigration sharply, as it estimates that this would save the Swedish government 151 billion Swedish kronor ($21.9 billion) within four years.
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