Scania - Regional Politics

Regional Politics

There are no independence movements organized for electoral contests in Scania, although some of the small parties with seats in various municipalities have from time to time placed secession in combination with anti-immigration measures on their party platforms. A coalition of 16 smaller parties (Skånes Väl) held 6 seats of 149 in the regional council during the period 1998-2002, but in Region Skåne's 2002 election, they lost all their seats. In 2006, one of the 16 parties in the coalition, the small anti-immigration party Skånepartiet, made an unsuccessful bid for seats in the general election of Sweden, receiving 11 votes nationally. In the regional elections of 2006, The Scanian Independence Party ("Skånes självständighetsparti"), a coalition between Skånepartiet and another party called Centrum-Demokraterna, received 4623 votes.

As a part of the process of decentralization in Sweden, and as a part of the regionalist efforts in Scania, separatism thus plays a negligible role. According to some scholars, separatist driven activities may however run parallel with the top-down driven region-building efforts put in place to promote regional development, as well as the efforts by regional actors to promote and protect Scanian culture, and therefore, separatism may contribute to the mobilization of mutually supporting forces, especially in border areas like Scania where cross-border cooperation is important.