January Agreement 2019 (Januariavtalet)
On 11 January 2019 the Social Democrats, Greens, Centerpartiet and Liberalerna signed a 73-point policy programme, the Januariavtalet, which let Stefan Löfven return as PM in exchange for liberal economic reforms (labour-market deregulation, market rents on new apartments, school choice) and the explicit exclusion of the Sweden Democrats and the Left Party from policy influence.
- Correction Welfare & identity C After years anchoring the centre-right Alliance, the Centre Party crossed the bloc line in 2019 to give a Social Democratic-led government confidence and supply via the 73-point January Agreement, to keep the Sweden Democrats out of influence.
Why this verdict?
C's position was anchoring the centre-right Alliance; crossing to support a Social Democratic government had no congress mandate. However Annie Lööf's choice was negotiated publicly over months and announced before the January Agreement was signed. Voters knew before the deal took effect — correction, though at the outer edge of the test.
- Betrayal Economy MP To stay in government after the 2018 deadlock, the Greens signed the 73-point January Agreement in 2019 and accepted market-liberal reforms they had earlier resisted, including inquiries into market rents and looser labour rules.
Why this verdict?
MP had explicitly opposed market-rate rents and looser labour rules — these were stated red lines. To remain in government after the 2018 deadlock, MP signed the 73-point January Agreement accepting inquiries into both. No member vote authorised accepting these positions. The deal was signed first, then presented to members. Betrayal.
The Januariavtalet, signed on 11 January 2019, is the formal end of the four-party Alliance and the beginning of an unusual hybrid: a Social Democrat-led government that committed in writing to a programme dominated by liberal economic reforms. Four parties signed — S, MP, C, and L — and produced 73 numbered policy commitments. SD and V were excluded from negotiations.
The deal made the 134-day formation crisis solvable. Stefan Löfven was re-elected PM on 18 January and Löfven II took office three days later. In substance the agreement was C and L’s price for crossing the bloc line: labour-market deregulation (the LAS reform), free school choice protection, expansion of RUT-avdrag, and a controversial inquiry into market-based rents in newly built apartments.
That last point — point 44, on rental-market liberalisation — eventually broke the agreement. The Left Party, which had tolerated the government on the explicit promise that this track would not advance against its objection, withdrew support in June 2021 and triggered the Midsummer crisis. The technique itself — contract parliamentarism — was not introduced by the January Agreement: political science had described it back in the early 2000s, and its immediate Swedish precursor was the December Agreement of 2014. But of these agreements the January one was the most detailed on policy — 73 numbered points. The 2022 Tidö Agreement inherited the technique and went further: it bound not just policy but the machinery of government itself, for the first time giving a support party with no ministerial posts its own coordination office inside the Government Offices.
Related entities
On the values timeline
- 1995Economy · After governing in the centre-right Bildt cabinet, Centerpartiet crossed the bloc line in spring 1995 and entered close budget cooperation with the Social Democrats, taking shared responsibility for the austerity package that consolidated state finances through 1998.
- 2009Energy · Once Sweden's defining anti-nuclear party, the Centre Party under Maud Olofsson accepted the February 2009 Alliance energy deal to lift the ban on building new reactors.
- you are here2019Welfare & identity · After years anchoring the centre-right Alliance, the Centre Party crossed the bloc line in 2019 to give a Social Democratic-led government confidence and supply via the 73-point January Agreement, to keep the Sweden Democrats out of influence.
- 2022Security & defence · Dropped its earlier reservations and backed NATO membership.
- 2008EU · In autumn 2008 the Greens dropped their long-standing demand that Sweden leave the EU, after a member vote split 55-45 in favour of accepting membership.
- 2015Migration · In government, the Greens carried an asylum tightening they had long opposed.
- 2016Energy · In 2016 the Greens, a party born from the anti-nuclear movement, signed a cross-bloc energy deal that allowed new reactors to be built on existing sites (capped at ten) and kept the phase-out law off the books, in exchange for a 2040 target of 100% renewable electricity.
- you are here2019Economy · To stay in government after the 2018 deadlock, the Greens signed the 73-point January Agreement in 2019 and accepted market-liberal reforms they had earlier resisted, including inquiries into market rents and looser labour rules.
- KD2015Walked out of the cross-bloc pact built to contain the Sweden Democrats — the first crack in the wall.
- KD2019In 2019 the Christian Democrats dropped their refusal to deal with the Sweden Democrats: the party board opened to talks with all Riksdag parties in March, and by December Busch Thor said KD was prepared to negotiate with SD on any issue.
- M2019Ulf Kristersson, who in January 2018 said he would not speak with or work alongside the Sweden Democrats, held his first meeting with Jimmie Åkesson in December 2019 and said he wanted the Moderates to cooperate with SD in parliament.
- M2022In October 2022 the Moderates signed the Tidö Agreement, forming a government that depends on the Sweden Democrats they had once refused to deal with.
- S1997Under Goran Persson, the Social Democrats made budget consolidation and a public-finance surplus target the core of fiscal policy by 1997, subordinating their older deficit-spending tradition.
- M2006Reinvented as "the New Moderates", accepting the welfare state to win the centre.
- V2008In December 2008 the Left Party committed for the first time to join a binding Red-Green coalition government with the Social Democrats and Greens if they won the 2010 election.
- V2021Brought down a sitting Social Democratic prime minister over market-rate rents — the first no-confidence vote to succeed.