Analysis: "Danish-Norwegian message painful setback for the government"

Unlike many other European countries, Sweden has not had a full-scale "lockdown", but on the other hand a number of severe restrictions to limit the spread of infection.

Several of these restrictions are now lifted. The university, upper secondary schools and adult education are opened again, first for summer courses and then for normal teaching from the autumn term. At the same time, sports are allowed at the elite level, which opens for, among other things, the Allsvenskan in football from mid-June.

The plan was also, according to SVT's sources, to alleviate the restrictions on domestic travel this summer already. However, the Public Health Authority requested additional time to be able to evaluate and analyze the spread of infection in the recent time before the authority felt ready to make a final decision.

Right now a fairly unclear recommendation is that Swedes should not travel for more than two hours by car from the home. A recommendation that seems even more peculiar given that thousands of Danes every weekend take the car across the Öresund Bridge to Sweden to visit their holiday homes.

If universities of higher education are opened this summer, it is also reasonable to assume that travel restrictions need to be mitigated. 

However, the exact form of the rules to apply this summer is unclear. The hard-pressed hospitality industry is pushing for totally lifted restrictions. Summer is the peak season for this industry and in the balance there are thousands of jobs.

When Norway and Denmark now open the border for travel between the countries, it will also be more difficult for Swedish politicians and authorities to maintain the legitimacy of strict travel restrictions within Sweden.

At the same time, it is a fact that Sweden is much more severely affected by the coronary infection than both Norway and Denmark.

Therefore, Sweden is also exempted from Friday's Danish-Norwegian settlement, which basically means free travel between the countries.

It also gives critics of the Swedish action during the corona crisis water on its mill. The hope in Skåne is to reach a regional agreement with Denmark, but we are not there yet.

And in the parliament, criticism is now increasing. Of all the judgments, the famous castle peace is now essentially over. The opposition sharpens the tone in several issues linked to the Swedish fight against infection.

In Friday's parliamentary debate, both the Sweden Democrats and the Moderates accused the government of carrying the main responsibility for ensuring that elderly people could not be protected at the country's elderly housing. At the same time, the opposition criticizes the government for not meeting the target of 100,000 tested per week.

A third issue in which political conflict now prevails is the view of a special corona commission that will examine Swedish behavior during the crisis. Several opposition parties demand that such a commission be set up immediately, while the government wants to wait until the crisis is over. Here, the tone is set to be raised further next week as the Moderates take the initiative in Parliament's constitutional committee to try to run over the government and force a commission. It is thus obvious for an increasingly tough political debate about how Sweden has handled the corona crisis.