Per Bolund

On Holocaust Remembrance Day January 27 several representatives from the Swedish Government participated in memorial services to honour the victims of the Holocaust and to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau.

The Government has appointed an inquiry to offer proposals on how to implement a ban on sales of new petrol and diesel cars, and when fossil fuels should be phased out by. Sven Hunhammar will chair the inquiry.

Today the Government adopted guidelines for the Debt Office’s management of the central government debt. The foreign currency exposure of the central government debt is to be unchanged pending the Debt Office’s analysis of the strategic foreign currency exposure of the central government debt.

The Government intends to introduce a climate declaration requirement when buildings are constructed, which will enter into force on 1 January 2022. To implement the measures needed to accomplish this in an efficient and effective manner, the National Board of Housing, Building and Planning will receive SEK 10 million per year up to 2022.

The Government is now proposing enhanced efforts for green and safe communities. The Budget Bill is based on an agreement between the Government, the Centre Party and the Liberal Party.

The Government is now proposing to enhance the work for Sweden’s valuable natural environments through investments in the protection of forests, more monitoring of the situation in natural environments and more robust efforts against eutrophication. The Budget Bill builds on an agreement between the Government, the Centre Party and the Liberal Party.

The Government decided today to task the Swedish National Debt Office with issuing green bonds by 2020. These are bonds that are used to fund budget expenditure on sustainable investments and projects. This bond issue will promote the Swedish market for green bonds and is part of the Government’s action to transition to sustainable development.

Minister for Financial Markets and Housing Per Bolund talks about how he wants to tackle his new area of responsibility, housing issues, and how he wants to work for stable financial markets that also help make Sweden more environmentally friendly.

As of 1 January 2020, new requirements will be introduced for fund managers to more clearly report how actively a fund’s assets are managed. The aim is to reduce the incidence of funds marketed as actively managed but which in fact follow a benchmark. This is the Government’s proposal in a bill presented to the Riksdag.

Today the Government will present a bill to the Riksdag to make it possible to exempt companies from the United Kingdom for a limited time from the requirement to hold a licence from Finansinspektionen (the Swedish Financial Supervisory Authority) to provide investment services.