InvestigationShunned by their traditional electorate, the social democrats of the Nordic countries have returned to power by betting on ecology, social and collective issues, the defense of the welfare state, but also by hardening their positions on immigration. .
Will history remember that it was in Gothenburg, at the beginning of November 2021, that the Swedish Social Democrats finally allowed themselves to believe in a possible new start? Four years earlier, activists and leaders of the Rose Party had already chosen the exhibition center of Scandinavia’s largest port, on the west coast of the kingdom, to hold their 39and Congress. At the time, like a ghost, the “crisis of social democracy” haunted all discussions. In Northern Europe, they were the only ones of their political family still in power and if they managed to hold on after the legislative elections of September 2018, it was with the worst score in their history.
The context has radically changed when the 41 opensand party congress, November 3, 2021, at the same place. In Norway, two weeks earlier, Labor leader Jonas Gahr Store took over as head of a coalition government with the centrist party. In Germany, the leader of the SPD, Olaf Scholz, is preparing to replace Angela Merkel as Chancellery, after his party’s victory in the elections on September 26, where he won 25.7% of the vote. And since 2019, they have returned to business in Finland and Denmark.
This concomitance, which had not occurred since 2001, is it the result of chance? Or is it a sign? Proof of the revitalization of a political and ideological current more than a century old, architect of the welfare state, defender of a mixed economy and committed to consultation with the social partners? A current that seemed out of breath since the beginning of the century, running out of ideas to face the great current challenges, after being tempted by Tony Blair’s “third way” and neoliberal ideology.
Appointed by activists to succeed Stefan Löfven, leader of the Swedish Social Democratic Party since 2011 and Prime Minister since 2014, Magdalena Andersson affirmed in her inaugural speech in Gothenburg: social democracy is “in a position of ideological strength”. For this 54-year-old economist, who for seven years embodied Sweden’s very restrictive budgetary policy at the head of the Ministry of Finance, there is no doubt: “The world craves more collective solutions and less market experience. Fewer confrontations and polarization. More equality and solidarity. »
Ideological turn
At the podium, Olaf Scholz holds the same speech. In the midst of negotiations with the partners of his future government coalition (the Greens and the Liberals), the almost German Chancellor took a break to come to Gothenburg on 5 November. In front of the Swedish militants, the leader of the SDP, welcomed by a standing ovation, salutes the “remarkable revival of social democracy and progressive parties across Europe and the world”.
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