The second minister in two days resigned from Sweden's new right-of-centre government today, heaping pressure on Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt on the day his coalition was to present its first budget.
Culture Minister Cecilia Stego Chilo stepped down after a week of newspaper revelations that she had failed to pay her TV licence fee for 16 years.
Sweden's Culture Minister Cecilia Stego Chilo
Trade Minister Maria Borelius quit on Saturday after reports that she had dodged taxes.
Ms Chilo said the failure to pay her television licence fee for so long, along with not paying employer taxes for her nanny when her children were small, "was not acceptable".
She said she had tried to resolve the situation by offering to pay the fee retroactively, but these efforts were stopped when she was reported to police by the licence fee authority.
"I am naturally very sorry that it is necessary to leave the ... culture department after so short a time," Ms Chilo said in a statement.
Mr Reinfeldt, whose four-party coalition ended 12 years of Social Democrat rule in September elections, had named his cabinet just 10 days ago.
The government, which includes Mr Reinfeldt's Moderate Party, the Liberal Party, the Christian Democrats and the Centre Party, was dogged all last week by reports about Ms Chilo and Ms Borelius.
Ms Chilo faced especially heavy criticism as her job included oversight of the public TV channels funded by licence fees.
Ms Borelius resigned after newspaper reports said a country house she owned had been bought via a Jersey-registered firm, allowing her to avoid property tax. Mr Reinfeldt last week appointed a lawyer to go through her tax affairs.
With the two ministers under the harshest glare now gone, the budget may be a chance for Mr Reinfeldt to shift the focus back to economic policy. The budget includes cuts in tax and unemployment benefits and forecasts economic growth this year of 4 per cent this year, easing to 3.3 percent in 2007.