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SCHOOLS

Inquiry recommends making it easier to search Swedish schoolchildren

A new inquiry on safety at school recommends that schools be forced to report students who commit crimes on campus to police, as well as being given increased powers to carry out bodily searches and exclude unauthorised visitors.

Published: 6 March 2024 12:48 CET
Inquiry recommends making it easier to search Swedish schoolchildren
Leader of the inquiry, Jonas Trolle, presenting the report alongside School Minister Lotta Edholm. Photo: Jessica Gow/TT

The report was handed over to Minister of Education Lotta Edholm by the government’s special investigator Jonas Trolle, head of the Centre for Preventing Violent Extremism (CVE), on Wednesday.

As well as recommending that schools be given increased powers to carry out bodily searches, it proposes that they be given the possibility to search “bags and other items within the school grounds”, with specially designated staff appointed to carry out these checks.

A first interim report last summer proposed that the centre be tasked with supporting municipalities, social services and other actors to prevent school attacks.

The inquiry was originally set up by the previous Social Democrat government in a response to a number of school attacks which resulted in deaths and injuries to both teachers and students.

The current government has broadened the inquiry’s remit since then to include more types of crime, arguing that it is of benefit to society to be able to identify children and young people at risk of ending up in criminal networks at an earlier stage.

The inquiry’s final conclusions will be presented by December 20th, 2024, after which the report and its proposals will be sent out for consultation to the relevant government agencies or organisations, municipalities and other stakeholders, who can submit responses.

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POLITICS

European elections: The 5 numbers you need to understand the EU

Here are five key figures about the European Union, which elects its new lawmakers from June 6-9:

Published: 9 May 2024 09:22 CEST
European elections: The 5 numbers you need to understand the EU

4.2 million square kilometres

The 27-nation bloc stretches from the chilly Arctic in the north to the rather warmer Mediterranean in the south, and from the Atlantic in the west to the Black Sea in the east.

It is smaller than Russia’s 17 million square kilometres (6.6 million square miles) and the United States’ 9.8 million km2, but bigger than India’s 3.3 million km2.

The biggest country in the bloc is France at 633,866 km2 and the smallest is Malta, a Mediterranean island of 313 km2.

448.4 million people

On January 1, 2023, the bloc was home to 448.4 million people.

The most populous country, Germany, has 84.3 million, while the least populous, Malta, has 542,000 people.

The EU is more populous than the United States with its 333 million but three times less populous than China and India, with 1.4 billion each.

24 languages and counting

The bloc has 24 official languages.

That makes hard work for the parliament’s army of 660 translators and interpreters, who have 552 language combinations to deal with.

Around 60 other regional and minority languages, like Breton, Sami and Welsh, are spoken across the bloc but EU laws only have to be written in official languages.

20 euro members

Only 20 of the EU’s 27 members use the euro single currency, which has been in use since 2002.

Denmark was allowed keep its krona but Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Sweden are all expected to join the euro when their economies are ready.

The shared currency has highlight the disparity in prices across the bloc — Finland had the highest prices for alcoholic beverages, 113 percent above the EU average in 2022, while Ireland was the most expensive for tobacco, 161 above the EU average.

And while Germany produced the cheapest ice cream at 1.5 per litre, in Austria a scoop cost on average seven euros per litre.

100,000 pages of EU law

The EU’s body of law, which all member states are compelled to apply, stretches to 100,000 pages and covers around 17,000 pieces of legislation.

It includes EU treaties, legislation and court rulings on everything from greenhouse gases to parental leave and treaties with other countries like Canada and China.

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