Sawing the Forest for its Trees: An analysis of the discussions regarding the EU Forest Strategy for 2030 in Sweden

Bryan Trannin BAYNE

Master's thesis

Abstract:

In July 2021, the European Commission proposed a new Forest Strategy for 2030 to harmonize European forest policy with the European Green Deal and achieve its environmental targets. This Strategy has stirred great debate in Sweden and led to a full-blown political crisis as the Green and Center parties threatened to withdraw their confidence in the government should their positions not be supported. In particular, the Strategy's proposal to reduce the use of clear-cutting production techniques has proven to be highly controversial in Sweden, as it clashes with the country's "freedom with responsibility" forestry model. First, this thesis explores the political landscape of modern Sweden, mired by instability and fragmentation since the 2017 elections, and the effects of this landscape on the forest debates. Then, this thesis applies frame discourse analysis to 45 newspaper articles from three of Sweden's leading newspapers to analyze the debate regarding the Forest Strategy for 2030 in Sweden. It categorized citations from articles into 14 different frames to assess how media frames Swedish forests and the EU Forest Strategy, then ranked these frames according to their dominance and prevalence to ascertain the most influential frames. The results indicate that there is broad consensus within Sweden that forests play a key role in climate change and that forest policy should reflect this role, but strong disagreement as to what that means. Both opponents and supporters of the Strategy claimed that their policies were the most environmentally-friendly ones. These disagreements may have been accentuated by the political constellation of the current Swedish parliament. Moreover, this study has also found that Swedish media has taken a relatively non-partisan stance on the issue, publishing a similar amount of articles from both sides of the divide. Ultimately, since the disagreements are of substance rather than principle, this thesis suggests that compromise may be possible.

Abstract:

In July 2021, the European Commission proposed a new Forest Strategy for 2030 to harmonize European forest policy with the European Green Deal and achieve its environmental targets. This Strategy has stirred great debate in Sweden and led to a full-blown political crisis as the Green and Center parties threatened to withdraw their confidence in the government should their positions not be supported. In particular, the Strategy's proposal to reduce the use of clear-cutting production techniques has proven to be highly controversial in Sweden, as it clashes with the country's "freedom with responsibility" forestry model. First, this thesis explores the political landscape of modern Sweden, mired by instability and fragmentation since the 2017 elections, and the effects of this landscape on the forest debates. Then, this thesis applies frame discourse analysis to 45 newspaper articles from three of Sweden's leading newspapers to analyze the debate regarding the Forest Strategy for 2030 in Sweden. It categorized citations from articles into 14 different frames to assess how media frames Swedish forests and the EU Forest Strategy, then ranked these frames according to their dominance and prevalence to ascertain the most influential frames. The results indicate that there is broad consensus within Sweden that forests play a key role in climate change and that forest policy should reflect this role, but strong disagreement as to what that means. Both opponents and supporters of the Strategy claimed that their policies were the most environmentally-friendly ones. These disagreements may have been accentuated by the political constellation of the current Swedish parliament. Moreover, this study has also found that Swedish media has taken a relatively non-partisan stance on the issue, publishing a similar amount of articles from both sides of the divide. Ultimately, since the disagreements are of substance rather than principle, this thesis suggests that compromise may be possible.

Keywords

EU Forest Strategy, forest policy, freedom with responsibility, Swedish politics, Swedish media

Language used: English

Date on which the thesis was submitted / produced: 29. 7. 2022

Thesis defence

• Supervisor: Mgr. Jindřich Frajer, Ph.D.

Palacký University Olomouc

Faculty of Arts

Master programme / field:
Humanities / Euroculture