The Alliance (Swedish: Alliansen, from 2004-10 the Alliance for Sweden,[4] Swedish: Allians för Sverige), was a centre-right[3] liberal-conservative political alliance in Sweden. The Alliance consisted of the four centre-right political parties in the Riksdag. The Alliance was formed while in opposition, and later achieved a majority government in the 2006 general election and a minority government in the 2010 general election, governing Sweden from 2006 to 2014 with Fredrik Reinfeldt of the Moderate Party serving as Prime Minister of Sweden until 2014. The Alliance was co-chaired by every component party's individual leaders.
After defeat in the 2014 Swedish general election, the Moderate Party's parliamentary group leader Anna Kinberg Batra announced to the Riksdag that the political alliance "would operate in opposition". On 11 January 2019, during the 2018–2019 Swedish government formation, the Centre Party and Liberals agreed to tolerate the re-election as Prime Minister of Social Democratic incumbent Stefan Löfven.[5] Moderate Party leader Ulf Kristersson and Christian Democrat leader Ebba Busch denounced the agreement, with Busch calling the Alliance "a closed chapter".[6]
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The Alliance consisted of the four centre-right (Swedish: borgerlig, lit. "bourgeois") parties in the Riksdag (Sweden's parliament). The members were:
Swedish politics had been dominated by the Social Democratic Party for over 70 years. They had been in government for all but nine years since 1932 (summer of 1936, 1976–1982, 1991–1994). The opposition parties decided that this was partly because they did not present a clear and viable alternative government.[when?] At a 2004 meeting held in the Centre Party leader Maud Olofsson's home in the village of Högfors in Westrobothnia, the four centre-right leaders at the time; Göran Hägglund (KD), Lars Leijonborg (L), Maud Olofsson (C) and Fredrik Reinfeldt (M) decided to form the political cooperation that would become The Alliance. The meeting ended on 31 August 2004 with the presentation of a joint declaration outlining the principles under which the four parties intended to fight the election.[7] A year later a similar meeting was held at Christian Democrat leader Göran Hägglund's home in Bankeryd, resulting in the affirmation of the alliance and another declaration.[8]
The centre-right Alliance for Sweden aimed to win a majority of seats in the 2006 Riksdag elections and to form a coalition government.
In order to do this, the member parties decided to issue common policy statements and to draft a joint election manifesto. Each individual party still had its own manifesto and policies, but these would build up from common proposals in the Alliance's joint proposals. The Alliance had policy working groups for six areas: economic policy, education policy, foreign policy, the welfare state, employment and business policy, and policing. These were not set according to party size, but with one senior politician (often an MP) and one staff per party, and following the idea that "everybody contributes and everybody gains".[9]
An example of this policy cooperation was the budget proposal that the Alliance parties put forward on 2 October 2005. The core proposal was a tax cut of 49 billion Swedish kronor, which is 1.9% of GDP and 3.3% of the total income of the public sector in 2005.[10] Each individual party also proposed its own policies in addition. For example, the Liberals wanted to spend 1bn kronor extra on tertiary education and the Christian Democrats want to have more benefits and tax deductions for families.
On 14 June 2006 Alliance for Sweden agreed on a common energy policy which would apply over the next parliamentary term (2006–2010), and included a promise not to shut down any more nuclear reactors during that period (Barsebäck 2 was shut down in 2005). The proposal was that no more reactors were to be built, that the nuclear phase-out law would be repealed and