The Sweden Democrats drop their EU referendum demand (2019)
In January 2019 the Sweden Democrats dropped their demand for a referendum on leaving the EU. The party said it would now try to change the union from the inside instead.
- Correction EU SD In January 2019 the Sweden Democrats abandoned their demand for a referendum on leaving the EU, saying they would reform the union from within instead.
Why this verdict?
SD had demanded a referendum on leaving the EU since their early years. In January 2019 party leadership publicly announced they were dropping the exit-referendum demand and would instead reform the EU from within. An open leadership announcement before any change in parliamentary behaviour — correction.
For most of their history the Sweden Democrats argued that Sweden did not belong in the European Union. They wanted a referendum on leaving — the vote that came to be called a “swexit” — and EU-scepticism was one of the issues people knew them for.
In January 2019 they dropped that demand. The Sweden Democrats said they no longer wanted a referendum on EU membership. Their new aim was to reform the union from within: change how the EU works rather than take Sweden out of it.
The European Parliament election was coming up that spring, and the party went into it promising to push its agenda inside the EU’s own institutions. SVT Nyheter and Europaportalen both reported the move at the time as the Sweden Democrats walking away from their long-standing exit line.
If you want to weigh the change, compare what the party demanded before with what it asked for after, and watch the trigger and the timing rather than the label stuck on it. That is how we read a value shift.
Related entities
On the values timeline
- 1996Security & defence · In 1996, under new chairman Mikael Jansson, the Sweden Democrats banned uniform-like clothing, bomber jackets and fascist imagery at their meetings, part of a deliberate effort begun in 1995 to distance the party from its neo-Nazi milieu.
- 2002Migration · Between its 1996 and 1999/2002 programs the Sweden Democrats softened their migration line, replacing the demand for an immigration stop and large-scale repatriation of post-1970 immigrants with a 'strongly regulated' policy and only conditional return.
- 2012Security & defence · In 2012, Sweden Democrats leader Jimmie Åkesson formally instated an official 'zero tolerance' policy against racism and extremism in the party, after years of extremist associations.
- you are here2019EU · In January 2019 the Sweden Democrats abandoned their demand for a referendum on leaving the EU, saying they would reform the union from within instead.
- 2022Migration · From political quarantine to co-author of the governing Tidö agreement.
- S1991The Social Democrats reversed their long-standing opposition to EC/EU membership: the Carlsson government applied to join in July 1991, and Sweden entered the EU in 1995.
- MP2008In 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.
- V2024At its May 2024 congress in Jönköping the Left Party dropped its long-standing active demand that Sweden leave the EU, keeping exit only as a last resort.