UDDEVALLA, Sweden — The downward slide of the Social Democrats in the Swedish town of Uddevalla arguably started at 1:19 p.m. on Tuesday, Feb. 4, 1986. With a crash, the mighty gantry crane that had long loomed above the town’s shipyard came down in a plume of dust as thousands of mournful locals watched on. The shipyard was replaced with a Volvo car plant — which itself closed in 2013, taking with it what was left of the town’s industrial heart.  Support for the Social Democrats, the self-styled party of the workers, has fallen by a third nationally since the day that crane came down, as increased automation and the shift of manufacturing to other countries has eroded blue-collar employment in Sweden. The party, which has dominated Swedish politics for a century, is now facing an alarming reality in old heartlands like Uddevalla, just over an hour’s drive north of Gothenburg on Sweden’s west coast: Blue-collar voters, and those who have come of age since the docklands’ heyday, have begun turning toward the political right for economic answers.  “All you get with the Social Democrats is higher prices and fewer jobs,” said Elias Abrahamsson, a 21-year-old business student at Uddevalla’s central college. “They just don’t seem to have the right vision,” he said during a break between classes on a recent weekday.  CENTER LEFT SINKS IN EUROPE The struggles of Swedish Social Democrats in Uddevalla also underscore a broader challenge facing sister parties across Europe in the wake of a June European Parliament election that saw the party group lose seats for the second time in a row.  In Finland, the center left lost a national election last year to center-right and far-right opponents, leading popular leader Sanna Marin to step down. Also in 2023, the Socialist Workers’ Party of Pedro Sánchez in Spain saw a similarly poor election result and has been struggling to retain power. In Germany, Chancellor Olaf Scholz of the German Social Democratic Party will face voters early next year — with current polling suggesting he’s off track to retain the chancellery.  In a worrying precedent for Scholz, the Swedish center right under Moderate Party leader Ulf Kristersson won national power from the Social Democrats in 2022 only with the backing of the far-right Sweden Democrats — a party long ostracized by mainstream parties due to its neo-Nazi roots and hard-line stance on immigration.  In Uddevalla, the Sweden Democrats were more popular than Kristersson’s Moderates in 2022, with its local leader Martin Pettersson replacing a Social Democrat mayor.  “We have won the hearts and trust of the voters and the trust of the other parties on the political right,” Pettersson said in an interview with POLITICO in his office overlooking the old docklands. “We see ourselves as being at the beginning of a long-term period of political stability.”  DECLINING DOMINANCE IN SWEDEN The Swedish Social Democrats emerged as a political force in the early 20th century as standard-bearers for workers’ rights against a powerful business-owning elite.  The Swedish center right under Moderate Party leader Ulf Kristersson won national power from the Social Democrats in 2022. | Omar Havana/Getty Images The party advocated a strong role for unions in a groundbreaking collective-wage bargaining system with employers, which by mid-century had laid a solid foundation for an economic boom.  A raft of highly successful companies — from trucking blue chips Volvo and Scania to paper-making behemoth SCA to world-leading telecom player Ericsson — helped make Sweden one of the richest countries in the world.  The Social Democrats rode this wave from the 1930s to the 1980s, winning more than 40 percent of the vote at every election and governing almost continuously. In the wake of a deep financial crisis in the 1990s, they lost their grip on power twice. Now, amid bleak prospects for manufacturers across Europe in the face of competition from China, the Swedish Social Democrats find themselves in opposition again as younger voters and workers have turned away.   Exit polling from the 2022 election showed the Moderates were most popular with voters aged 18 to 21, at 26 percent, with Sweden Democrats second at 22 percent.   At the same time, the share of blue-collar workers who voted for the Sweden Democrats in 2022 rose to 29 percent — just below the Social Democrats’ tally of 32 percent. In 2022, the far-right Sweden Democrats was the most popular party overall in the paper-making centers of Lilla Edet and Munkedal, neighboring municipalities to Uddevalla. BID FOR COMEBACK While Uddevalla Mayor Pettersson said he has supported the Sweden Democrats his entire adult life, some of his colleagues are defectors from the Social Democrats.  Sweden Democrats lawmaker Magnus Persson, a scaffolder by trade who now heads the Swedish parliament’s labor market committee, said he grew disillusioned with the Social Democrats after what he saw as their failure to protect Swedish builders from cheaper rivals moving in from abroad.   “We didn’t think it was our party anymore,” he told Swedish daily Dagens Nyheter.  But over recent months, a plan by the Social Democrats to fight back in their old heartlands has begun to emerge. In late August, leader Magdalena Andersson spoke to party faithful in the industrial hub of Sandviken, northeast of Uddevalla, calling for a fair deal for workers.  Leader Magdalena Andersson spoke to party faithful in the industrial hub of Sandviken, northeast of Uddevalla, calling for a fair deal for workers. | Michael Campanella/Getty Images “When you contribute according to your ability, when you work and pay taxes, then you should be able to live a good life,” she said.  Days later, 11 Social Democrat working groups passed along 200 policy ideas to Andersson, marking the end of the initial stage of the party’s first policy platform reboot in a decade.  Ideas for the workers included replacing the current network of job centers with a new authority, as well as focusing on vocational teaching and expanding apprenticeships.  In mid-November, the party published the draft of a new party program including a heavy focus on job opportunities and a living wage. Andersson will present the new platform at a party conference in the spring.  For now, optimism about the reboot was hard to find in Uddevalla. The student, Abrahamsson, is among voters yet to be won over. “I voted for the right last time — and unless something radical changes, I’ll do the same again.” 

Romania and Bulgaria might finally get the green light to become full members of the EU free-travel zone from the turn of the year, Home Affairs Commissioner Ylva Johansson said Friday. The countries were supposed to join the Schengen zone in 2023 along with Croatia, but that deal unraveled when Austria objected that Bulgaria and Romania were failing to handle a steep rise in migrants arriving through the Western Balkan route. The Netherlands also opposed Bulgaria’s entry. While air and maritime internal controls with the countries were lifted earlier this year, a Council deal to lift internal land borders is still pending. But at a meeting Friday in Budapest, the internal affairs ministers of Hungary, Austria, Bulgaria and Romania agreed to “initiate the necessary steps” to set a date to lift checks on land borders with Romania and Bulgaria, on the condition that joint efforts to stem irregular migration are continued. Their declaration also specified that the countries agreed to continue checks on borders between Hungary and Romania and between Romania and Bulgaria for at least six months “to prevent any serious threat to public policy or internal security.” The deal means there is hope that ministers meeting on Dec. 12 will agree to lift controls on the land borders with Bulgaria and Romania, Johansson said. She added that she hopes that the Council would settle on Jan. 1 as the start date. Romania and Bulgaria “have fulfilled all criteria — and above,” according to the commissioner. While overall irregular migration to the EU is down by 40 percent, there’s been an 80 percent decrease on the Western Balkan route, and there have been “no hiccups” since air borders were lifted, she said. Austria’s veto has not gone down well in Romania and Bulgaria, with the countries arguing that the continued border checks have resulted in long queues, supply chain disruptions and delayed deliveries, dealing a blow to their economies.  The fresh prospect of full Schengen membership comes at an opportune time for Romania’s Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu, who is running for president. He is leading the polls ahead of the first round of the election this Sunday. “Romanians have already felt the benefits of partial entry into the Schengen Area, but Romanian economic growth will be boosted with full accession, including by land,” Ciolacu said in comments Friday. There has been a massive drop in migrant arrival numbers, which are now “moving toward zero,” Austria’s Internal Affairs Minister Gerhard Karner said following the ministerial meeting. But he nonetheless remained cautious, saying that he’d discuss the border measures with his chancellor, Karl Nehammer, before taking a decision. The final decision will be taken in December, he said, adding; “Cross the bridge when you get there.” Addressing Bulgarian and Romanian citizens, Johansson was more enthusiastic: “You belong in Schengen, and you deserve to  benefit from all the freedoms in the Schengen area.”

Greece got the transport portfolio it was asking for — now Apostolos Tzitzikostas has to close the deal. Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis told POLITICO that Athens wanted its next commissioner to get a very important job. Transport doesn’t usually make the cut for that, but Greece is the world’s leading shipowning nation —responsible for 20 percent of global cargo capacity — so this is a file that matters. Expect MEPs to poke at some touchy issues in their questions. Greece’s government has yet to close the case of a deadly February 2023 train crash that caused a political backlash over its handling of the case. Greek shipping tycoons also supplied much of the shadow fleet that Russia is using to ship its oil in violation of EU sanctions. Finally, the member of the conservative European People’s Party is going to have to explain how the Commission will stick to its deadline of phasing out sales of new combustion engine cars by 2035. We’ll be bringing you all the live action from 6:30 p.m. CET on Nov. 4.  Background reading: * What Greece brings to the EU’s top transport job * Greece’s nominee among wealthiest incoming commissioners PS. If you want to follow more of the action from the hearings, our reporters will be bringing you blow-by-blow updates from all 26 commissioner interviews here.

The EU’s highest court threw out on Friday a controversial measure mandating that trucks have to return to their registered base every eight weeks, bringing an exceptionally bitter feud at the heart of the internal market to a close. The truck return mandate aimed to prevent companies from setting up shop in low-cost countries while operating on a near-permanent basis in other parts of the bloc. But it outraged countries on the EU’s periphery, which feared it would effectively exclude them from the internal market. The court said negotiators hadn’t done their homework before adding the measure. “The Parliament and the Council have not established that they had sufficient information at their disposal when that measure was adopted to enable them to assess its proportionality,” the Court of Justice of the EU found. The truck return obligation was, by far, the most controversial part of the Mobility Package reforms, which introduced new rules on truck drivers’ rest times, their right to local remuneration levels, and their ability to circulate within other countries to carry out deliveries there. That proved highly incendiary: While richer member countries argued the measures were crucial to prevent cheaper truckers from other countries from undermining local drivers’ working conditions, Central and Eastern European countries said the measures were protectionist and undercut the single market. Lithuania, Bulgaria, Romania, Cyprus, Hungary, Malta and Poland brought a total of 15 overlapping challenges of the measures, but the Court of Justice upheld all other parts of the package.

BRUSSELS — A law setting rules on how truckers operate set off an east-west battle between European Union member countries and laid bare a profound conflict at the heart of the bloc’s internal market. On Friday, the EU’s highest court will decide who’s in the right. The Court of Justice of the EU is delivering a long-awaited ruling on 15 overlapping legal challenges targeting a collection of reforms known as the Mobility Package. The reforms aimed to improve truck drivers’ lives and tackle unfair competition practices with new rules on driver rest times, their right to local salary levels and their ability to circulate within other countries to carry out deliveries. The package was viewed very differently depending on which part of the EU was doing the looking. For many West European countries, it was a strategy to prevent the EU’s free movement from undermining worker rights. Many Central Europeans, in contrast, saw it as an effort to protect western trucking companies at the expense of shipping firms from new member countries. Seven EU members sued; many more intervened in court. Rarely has a law “given rise to such a grouped and intense contentious reaction at EU level,” a top court adviser, Advocate General Giovanni Pitruzzella, noted in his November opinion. He warned that the debate raises “the risk of a split between two visions of the European Union … on an issue that is fundamental to the internal market.” In his opinion, Pitruzzella suggested ditching an obligation to regularly return trucks to their registered base — something welcomed by Lithuania and Malta.  But French, German and Nordic industry groups argued the advocate general didn’t find fault with the content of the measure and warned that scrapping it would “open the door to more social dumping and nomadic driving in Europe.” Now — four years after the package’s adoption and more than seven years after it was first proposed — the court gets a say. It’s under no obligation to echo an advocate general’s opinion, but it often does. A little refresher may be in order. Here’s what you need to know. 1. WHAT’S IT ALL ABOUT? The Mobility Package includes several reforms to improve truckers’ — undeniably tough — working conditions. The new measures banned drivers from taking long rests in their cabins and mandated their regular return home. It also introduced new restrictions on pickups and drop-offs within other EU countries, known as cabotage. The most controversial measure demands that trucks return to their company’s registered base at least once every eight weeks.  That was an effort to prevent so-called letterbox companies from registering in low-cost countries despite operating on a near-permanent basis on the other side of the Continent. But on the bloc’s periphery, that was seen as a protectionist measure to cut them out of the internal market and saddle their transport sectors with millions in added costs. Even the European Commission questioned the measure after its adoption, eliciting fresh outrage from negotiators. Now-outgoing Transport Commissioner Adina Vălean went as far as preparing plans to scrap it. 2. WHY IT MATTERS Trucks carrying goods from one country to the next will typically combine that international delivery with other deliveries along the way to bring down costs and avoid empty runs. But when foreign truckers pick up and deliver goods within another country, they’re also doing a transport job that could have been carried out by a local company. As a result, the debate about the mistreatment and unequal remuneration standards of truck drivers has become intertwined with discussions about unfair competition. 3. WHY IT WAS SO POLITICALLY DIVISIVE In EU lawmaking, negotiators’ positions can often be traced back to their political affiliation or the European Parliament’s typically more ambitious stance. But in the long-running talks on the Mobility Package, Council of the EU and Parliament negotiators — and even commissioners — split along geographic lines. It took negotiators years to find a carefully crafted deal that passed muster with enough countries. Take one piece of the puzzle out and the whole thing could come crashing down, they have warned. 4. WHO’S INVOLVED? Lithuania, Bulgaria, Romania, Cyprus, Hungary, Malta and Poland lodged a total of 15 challenges with the court. Estonia and Latvia, the two other countries which voted against the package, added their support to some of those challenges. Belgium backed Malta in its challenge of one measure. Other countries, including Germany, Italy, Sweden, Luxembourg, Denmark and Austria, banded together in a France-led “road alliance” and turned to the court in defense of the legislation. 5. IT’S BIGGER THAN TRANSPORT Countries supporting the package called for measures to improve truckers’ work conditions, framing it as an effort to halt a broader “race to the bottom” across the sector. Their warnings centered on worries that the bloc’s free-movement rules could harm social rights and erode support for the EU. They argued that cheaper workers moving from poorer EU countries undermine the working conditions of their own drivers. But countries questioning the reform saw that as protectionism. They complained that older EU countries treated the European project’s promise of free competition in a common EU market as something they’d only defend if it was to their advantage. That makes the stakes very high. “Over and above the legal issues at stake, it is therefore also, in a way, the pursuit of a desire to live together on common economic and social foundations that is at stake in these actions,” Pitruzzella cautioned in his opinion.