The Parliament House, Stockholm, 7 January 2016. Photo: Julian Herzog, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
Sweden voted on 13 September. The Election Authority confirmed the result on 19 September: the Social Democrats, the Left Party, the Centre Party and the Greens hold 176 of the Riksdag’s 349 seats; the Moderates, the Sweden Democrats, the Christian Democrats and the Liberals hold 173. On 18 September the Speaker asked the Social Democratic leader, Magdalena Andersson, to explore whether she can form a government the Riksdag will tolerate.
For the child sexual abuse regulation, the result matters for one reason: Sweden’s size.
The arithmetic
Nine governments are on record against mandatory scanning of private messages. Together they represent 32.9 % of the EU population, 2.1 points short of the 35 % that blocks a Council decision. Sweden holds 2.34 %, by the Council’s own 2026 figures.
If a Swedish government moved from support to opposition, the nine would become ten and their share would rise to 35.2 %. That is a blocking minority, and Sweden alone would have closed the gap.
Sweden is not undecided. The outgoing government of Ulf Kristersson supports mandatory scanning. In February 2025 its justice minister, Gunnar Strömmer, told the Riksdag that “the government and a broad majority in the Riksdag are prepared to continue a negotiation at EU level along these lines”. Sweden voted for the Council’s negotiating mandate on 26 November 2025 and for the temporary regime of voluntary scanning on 23 July 2026. The full record is on Sweden’s page.
What the parties said
On 3 September, ten days before the vote, the Swedish internet provider Bahnhof put the same question to every party in the Riksdag: if it gains influence in government, will it work for Sweden to say no in the Council to Chat Control, to general mass surveillance and to proposals that weaken end-to-end encryption?
Andersson’s three possible partners answered plainly. The Centre Party: “we can promise that our party will say no to proposals that include general mass surveillance and weaken encryption, in the Council of Ministers and in the EU negotiations”. The Left Party: “we have opposed proposals for general surveillance and large-scale scanning of people’s private communication”. The Greens said they could support a regulation only on one condition: “that the Chat Control proposal is kept out of the regulation”.
The two parties that could lead a government did not answer the question. The Social Democrats wrote that “well-balanced legislation with built-in safeguards” could prevent and prosecute many crimes, and that “we will always stand on the children’s side”. Andersson herself said in a party leaders’ debate on EU affairs in November 2025 that her party supports the proposal, Dagens PS reported on 1 September. The Moderates wrote: “We therefore cannot give a definitive answer to this question.”
The other three parties of the outgoing majority answered with opposition to general scanning. The Sweden Democrats: “Yes, we will; we will not approve any proposal that means weakening encryption.” The Christian Democrats: Sweden “should not support legislation that entails more general surveillance of people’s private communication”. The Liberals, in the most qualified terms: encryption “should not be broken without suspicion of a crime”. Two of these three, the Christian Democrats and the Liberals, sit in the government that supports mandatory scanning.
Counted together, the six parties that answered with some form of opposition hold 180 of the 349 seats in the new Riksdag.
A survey answer is not a vote. On 9 July, when the European Parliament voted on the temporary regime of voluntary scanning, Swedish members from the Social Democrats, the Moderates, the Centre Party and the Christian Democrats voted against rejecting it. That was a different question, voluntary scanning rather than mandatory, but it shows that party lines in Brussels and pledges in Stockholm do not always meet.
What it cannot change
Not the trilogue on 29 September. The new Riksdag meets on 28 September, and the earliest day a candidate for prime minister can be put to it is 29 September, the same day the presidency and the European Parliament meet. Sweden goes into that week with its outgoing government, and the Council’s line for the trilogue was prepared by the ambassadors on 23 September.
A candidate for prime minister falls only if more than half of the members, 175, vote against. The right-wing parties have 173. Andersson therefore needs none of her three partners to vote with them, which gives each of them a say in what her government will do.
The blocking minority counts later: at the Council’s vote on whatever the trilogues produce, on a date not yet set. By then Sweden will have a government, and before it votes in the Council it will consult the Riksdag’s Committee on EU Affairs, drawn from the new Riksdag.
What it changes in the record
Nothing yet. Sweden’s row on the tracker and on the governments page stays at “supports” until a Swedish government states a different line. A party’s answer to a survey is not a government position. When a government states one, the change will be entered with the document that shows it.
Sources: Swedish Election Authority, final result of the 2026 Riksdag election, 19 September 2026. SVT, the Speaker’s decision of 18 September 2026 and the procedure for the vote on a prime minister. Sveriges riksdag, timetable for the 2026/27 session. Bahnhof, election survey of 3 September 2026, question 1; party answers quoted in our translation from the Swedish. Riksdag, written answer of the Minister for Justice, 5 February 2025. Dagens PS, 1 September 2026. Europaportalen, on the European Parliament vote of 9 July 2026. Population shares: Council of the EU, 2026 figures.
