Sweden is closing five embassies worldwide in 2011: Buenos Aires, Brussels, Hanoi, Kuala Lumpur and Luanda.
The official reason is budget cuts. “This painful decision is a consequence of the recent decision of the Riksdag to cut funding to the Government Offices by SEK 300 million,” said Sweden’s Minister for Foreign Affairs Carl Bildt.
Elsewhere within Asean, Sweden has embassies in Singapore, Bangkok, Jakarta, Phnom Penh and Hanoi. Unlike certain Asean countries, Malaysia actually has an embassy in Sweden.
The closure is all the more puzzling as Malaysia is one of Sweden’s largest trade partners in Southeast Asia, according to the Swedish Embassy’s website.
Last March, some 200 Perkasa members gathered at the Swedish Embassy in KL and submitted a memo to protest at Swedish cartoonist Lars Volk’s caricatures published in the Swedish media that denigrated the Prophet. (See photos on the Perkasa blog-site.)
The controversy over whether Kartika should be caned for drinking beer – which undermined Malaysia’s ‘moderate Islam’ image abroad – was prominently featured in the Swedish media. See, for instance, an outspoken reaction here over the Kartika case, published on the website of one of the top-selling Swedish newspapers, Aftonbladet. Would the Swedish authorities be expected to cane its media editors for publishing Volk’s caricatures, the news portal mused.
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No wonder the hotdog tastes better than whatever Ramli Burger can offer.
they did very well!! Greece should do the same!!!!!!
Why the fuzz?
The Malaysian embassy in Sweden covers Sweden, Norway, Denmark and the Baltic countries.
Norway still seems to keep the embassy in KL despite not having their ‘own’ Malaysian embassy in Norway, and will probably even act for the poor Sweedes until they get their finances sorted out.
Anyone is welcome to Malaysia and free to leave if the feel to do so. Sweden, you can comeback in future if you recover in your finance, Malaysia will still welcome you. This is Malaysia.
Malaysian government of the day to check its destination and not to be a traitor to its own citizens by claiming Malaysia is an islamic nation and anybody or any organization should have respect for the constitution that is the foundation of our destined path towards a common Malaysian and not otherwise
There are 2 possibilities for Sweden’s decision to close its embassy in Malaysia. One, to prepare the country to face the imminent deteriorating economic downturn worldwide that has not abated at all. Seeing the US’s economic and financial trends to further deterioration may lend credence to Sweden’s pragmatic option. Europe itself is also in a bad shape. Two, islamophobia in Europe and in particular Sweden. International safety of its embassy staff/ citizens in Muslim countries could be uppermost in mind. The tense and abrasive race relation between white Swedes and Middle East/African Muslim immigrants has seen the most threatening of… Read more »
Don’t forget the ‘Perkasaphobia’ among the Europeans.
Sweden must have said to themselves that why do they keep an embassy in such an insignificant country like Malaysia !
That is how much the rest of the world must have also thought of Malaysia and the most important reason is Malaysia is also about to join Greece, Spain, Portugal and Ireland. So shenanigan Mahathir please come to the rescue of this adopted country of yours or you are not concerned what will happen to Malaysia and is preparing to migrate…(?)
The closure of the Swedish Embassy spoke a thousand words…should Mongolian Embassy and other Nobel prize winners’ countries follow suit? Let us watch how the Western countries do business!
No surprise at all!! They keep Singapore and even Phnom Penh. It was clearly nothing to do with cost cutting measure.
Perhaps IKEA alone is enough.
The Vikings are leaving, the Indons are coming, hurray!Terima kasih perkasa dengan semua demo demo kebelakang ini.
The Perkasa’s ‘Woodstock’ at the stadium is a recruitment drive for umno’s mat & minah rempit to memperkosakan the country. certainly this will scare away investors and tourists.
Interestingly Ericsson (Also a Swedish co) is (allegedly) downsizing operations in Malysia. We were the Regional Hub for Ericsson in Asean, ANZA & Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. Reliable sources (allege) another round lay-offs expected in the next few months.
The Yanks won’t close their embassy. It’s a much more cheaper way to ensure Malaysian government cooperation than sending over a carrier battle group.
Money, money, money. The cheesiest of Abba and guess what, Malaysian middle class teens of today will tell you how they can TOTALLY-LIKE relate to that song. And I can TOTALLY-LIKE understand if Sweden wants to LIKE close its embassy since Abbamania is LIKE on auto pilot, IKEA will LIKE forever be in business since their products don’t LIKE have a long lifespan but are still LIKE nice to have and to hold and Volvo will make sure you LIKE get there in one piece. If only LIKE we had our own brand names, we could also LIKE shut ours… Read more »
Bravo to Sweden!All EU/US/Canadian Embassies should close shop in Malaysia and in any Islamic-ruled countries – to challenge their human rights abuses!
how many ikea stores, volvo cars and old abba albums can embassy promote?
v good plan to save money by swedes.
msia should close embassy in sweden too, to cut costs.
in fact, seriously, govt should look again and close/merge its embassies arnd the world to gain savings of taxpayers’ money.
Swedish are smart. Volvo Cars was sold to China. China make the deal despite the itself going to curb automobile number to reduce oil consumption and traffics congestion.
Yes, with a average RM 28 million embassy cost, even IKEA Malaysia having a hard time to make such big profit to cover that cost.
Any charges of sexual assault for Lars Viks?
Wonder whether Mongolia is interested to use the embassy site to open theirs.
You are right. The selection of Malaysia is curious.
This is a subtle reminder of Malaysia’s status in the eyes of the Swede and I suspect many other countries.