Centre Party (Sweden)

History

The party was founded in 1913 as the Farmers' League (Swedish: Bondeförbundet). In 1922 it merged with the National Farmers' Union (Jordbrukarnas Riksförbund). The name of the party was changed from the Farmers' League in 1957. At that time it had been the closest ally of the Swedish Social Democratic Party for 25 years, and its coalition partners between 1936 and 1945 as well as between 1951 and 1957, but it has since revised this strategy in order to establish a closer long-term alliance between the centre-right (Swedish borgerlig, lit. "bourgeois" or "nonsocialist") parties, that achieved power between 1976 and 1982 and between 1991 and 1994. Thorbjörn Fälldin was the leader of the Centre Party and Prime Minister in 1976–1982, except a short interregnum in 1978–1979 by Liberal People's Party leader Ola Ullsten. The Centre Party again joined a centre-right government following the 1991 election led by Moderate Party leader Carl Bildt. During the leaderships of Maud Olofsson and Annie Lööf in the 2000s the party has positioned itself clearly on the political right as a small business-friendly party, leaning towards neoliberal and libertarian policies and viewing the Social Democrats as its main opponent.

In 2005 the Centre Party sold its ownership of the newspaper group Centertidningar AB for 1.8 billion SEK, thus making it - at the time - the richest political party in the world.

2006 Election

The 2006 Swedish election was a success for the Centre Party. Its support had been slowly increasing through recent elections; in 1998 it received 5.1% of the votes, and this increased to 6.2% in 2002. In the 2006 elections 7.88% of the vote went to the Centre Party, entitling them to 29 of the 349 seats in the Swedish Riksdag. Furthermore, their alliance with the other parties in the Alliance for Sweden, a coalition which won a majority of parliament seats in this election, meant that the Centre Party shared the ministry posts with their Alliance for Sweden allies: the Moderate Party, the Liberal People's Party and the Christian Democrats.

National Economy

Centerpartiet has in both liberal, socialist and conservative editorials been described as one of Sweden's most market liberal parties. However, the party describes themselves as a party with a green, social and earthy liberalism. The party leadership has many times taken distance from neoliberalism and libertarianism. The party advocates lower taxes, greatly reduced employer contributions, a freer market and an increased RUT-deductioned. The party is a big advocator for small-business, farmers and entrepreneurs. They also want to invest in the infrastructure and transportation so employees could work in bigger cities but still live in the rural areas (and vice versa). On economic policy, they've described their opponents to be the Swedish Social Democratic Party and the Sweden Democrats.

Immigration

Centerpartiet is a liberal immigration party, who stands that they want to combine a generously immigration policy with an initially more restrictive contribution policy to the immigrants. After the big immigration wave in autumn 2015, the party proposed to replace the existing establishment grants with establishment loans, similar to the Swedish student loans. The party is very clear with the responsibility of Sweden to receiving refugees but also the responsibility of the immigrants to establish and to become a part of the society. In January 2016 the party for example proposed to give all immigrants compulsory civic education in both rights and expectations from the society.

Before the 90s, the party had a much more restrictive view of immigration and held a negative view of liberal immigration policy. However, after the millennium shift and the shift of party president to Maud Olofsson and later Annie Lööf, the party began moving towards it's modern liberal view.

The contemporary liberal immigration policy has been absorbed by much of the party, but several members have expressed views of a more restrictive policy. For example, a member of parliament, Staffan Danielsson has been one of the party's biggest opponents of the liberal immigration policy. Danielsson expressed his view against the party's immigration policy in a way that went against the rules and norms of the parliamentary group, and therefore the group leadership responded with sanctions. After 4 days he reentered the group and agreement was made that he hadn´t broken any rules.

European Union

Centerpartiet is a decentralist pro-EU party who believes that the European Union is an important union to secure peace, freedom and trade between the European countries. But the party also advocates a smaller but sharper EU that focuses on democracy and peace, free movement and trade, vigorous action against climate change and collaboration against organized crime. Centerpartiet believes that Sweden should stay outside the monetary union and keep the SEK, and not shift to the Euro.

In the European Parliament the Centre Party is a member of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE) Party. Centerpartiet MEPs, Fredrick Federley is the vicepresident of the ALDE Party and the group leader of the ALDE group in the European Parliament Committee on Industry, Research and Energy.

Voters

Traditionally, most of the voters and votebank come from rural areas and quite a few are farmers and agricultural producers. In recent years however, since the takeover of Maud Olofsson the party has been attracting liberal voters from urban areas in central Sweden. It is believed that voters from the Liberal People's Party have been moving to the Centre Party due to changes in both parties.

Party Presidents

Current Members of Parliament