Swedish govt in deepening crisis after security breach

Bloomberg

Sweden’s government was dragged into a deepening crisis as the opposition united to demand no-confidence votes be cast against three Cabinet ministers for their handling of breaches that may have put classified information into the hands of foreign powers.
The four parties in the main opposition bloc called for the motions to be brought against Home Affairs Minister Anders Ygeman, Infrastructure Minister Anna Johansson and Defense Minister Peter Hultqvist, during a joint press conference in Stockholm on Wednesday. The motions, which have the support of the Sweden Democrats, threaten to destabilize Prime Minister Stefan Lofven’s Social Democratic-led government, raising the prospect of snap elections one year before the administration’s four-year term is due to end. “Sweden’s security has been jeopardized, and we take that very seriously,” Moderate Party leader Anna Kinberg-Batra told reporters. “Stefan Lofven has put Sweden in a serious security crisis and we are now asking for accountability from the ministers responsible.”
The opposition put its foot down just days after Lofven said he would start an investigation into the security breach. The scandal has its roots in decisions made two years ago, when the Swedish Agency outsourced its IT operations to IBM. The agency has been criticized for ignoring warnings from the Security Service, sidestepping rules in order to outsource the contract, which relied on vendors based in countries including Romania and the Czech Republic.