2014 Swedish government crisis

The 2014 Swedish government crisis (Swedish: Regeringskrisen i Sverige 2014) started on 3 December 2014 after the Riksdag rejected the proposed government budget in favour of a budget proposed by the centre-right opposition.

The Sweden Democrats declared at a press conference on 2 December 2014 that they would secondarily vote for the government budget proposed by other opposition parties in the centre-right Alliance, thus securing a majority for that budget and a defeat for the budget proposed by the Red-green Löfven cabinet. After a meeting between the Social Democrats, the Green Party and the parties of the Alliance did not lead to any solution or any plans of further negotiations, the Alliance's budget passed in the Riksdag on 3 December with a margin of 182 to 153 (14 parliamentarians not attending the meeting). The same day Prime Minister Stefan Löfven declared that the cabinet would call a snap election to be held on 22 March 2015. For constitutional reasons the snap election could not be called until 29 December 2014.^[1] If held, the election would have been the first snap election and the first election not held in September since 1958.^[2]

On December 27, 2014, Prime Minister Löfven announced the snap election would not be held, following a six-party agreement on future budget procedures involving all major parties but the Left Party and the Sweden Democrats.^[3]

The Agreement fell in October 2015 when the Christian Democrats decided to leave it.^[4] However, the centre-right parties Moderate, Liberals and Centre allowed the centre-left social democrat minority government to continue to govern.