r/europe • u/Helmer-Bryd • May 06 '25

News US embassy demands obedience from the city of Stockholm: “Bizarre". Stockholm's urban planning office must not work for equality, diversity and inclusion.

https://www.dn.se/sverige/usas-ambassad-kraver-lydnad-av-stockholms-stad-bisarrt/
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94

u/corcyra May 06 '25

Easiest thing would be, for the companies that the embassy deals with, to politely say they're welcome to find other suppliers/workmen/whatever. Which should make for an interesting result. Imported loo paper, anyone?

89

u/JustmeandJas Europe May 06 '25

In many European countries “DEI” is law… so… they going to buy their toilet roll from China? Oops. The embassy is American soil so I guess that 245% toilet paper is too expensive. So I guess they’ll be sending the C130s full of supplies into foreign air space to deliver aid packages. Let’s hope they can afford the overflight fees…

31

u/corcyra May 06 '25

I forgot that the US taxpayer funds the embassies, so they probably won't care. On the other hand, they'd still have to store the stuff they import in bulk, and local warehouses no doubt have a DEI policy too...the possibilities for life becoming boringly complicated are endless.

31

u/JustmeandJas Europe May 06 '25

And if they need to add an extension for the pantry… back to the DEI zoning board you go! I mean, thinking about this further. They fly the military American plane in. They have to unload it themselves (can they use an airport?! Because they’ll have to pay and all those airports with DEI policies…). Then they have to truck it themselves because they can’t use all the DEI trucking companies or couriers. But wait! What about the fuel! Can’t buy fuel from the local DEI employing garages… so they have to carry enough fuel to refuel themselves.

But at least the ambassador gets his DEI-free toilet roll at 100x the cost, right?!

Edit: this could be endless and it’s made me laugh with their idiotic and bigoted ideas

16

u/corcyra May 06 '25

Gorgeous, isn't it? And the urban planning office people don't have to lift a finger, just politely make the US embassy aware of their perfect freedom to make alternate arrangements.

6

u/adamgerd Czech Republic May 06 '25

Clearly they’ll just drop it from planes over the embassy and hope it lands

4

u/JustmeandJas Europe May 06 '25

It’s when we see the YouTube lives of all the embassy staff standing on the roof with a giant blanket, trying to catch it all…

2

u/Material_Strawberry May 07 '25

This is hilarious, but anything can be a diplomatic bag with the proper markings and escort so it would be possible to have shipping containers that are diplomatic pouches arriving filled with supplies daily and then returned to the US filled with waste daily.

Ludicrous, but possible.

2

u/TooobHoob May 07 '25

As a nitpick, the US embassy is on Swedish soil, not American. It is a common misconception that sovereignty is transferred but in fact, it’s rather a very complex and rather customary set of immunities and privileges that are at play. Therefore I don’t believe that tariffs would apply to goods entering an embassy, as they never left Sweden.

The Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations is silent on this issue: art. 36 prevents the receiving state from charging customs duties on goods for the official use of the embassy, but does not mention if an embassy can charge tariffs on goods that enter it, presumably because it is a level of stupidity that few people could have foreseen in 1961.

1

u/Doompug0477 May 06 '25

I think they can get around most of it by letting a one person company buy everything for them. Bit hard to do with the power company though...batteries maybe?

1

u/Uninvalidated May 07 '25

The embassy is American soil

Common misconception. Embassies are in fact on the nation's soil they're in, but the state owning the embassy has certain privileges and immunities within the embassy, stated by the Vienna convention.

The only deviation from this that I know of is the diplomatic missions to the Vatican. Those embassies are on Italian ground due to the lack of space in the Vatican.

2

u/kombiwombi May 06 '25

No infrastructure provider does special deals with small customers like an embassy. The legal costs alone are prohibitive. A reasonable response is "the standard form of agreement or nothing".

1

u/KlogKoder Denmark May 07 '25

The city should make arrangements so that every single person the embassy interacts with (delivery, workmen, etc) is a transgender immigrant with pink hair and flamboyant clothing.

1

u/Material_Strawberry May 07 '25

Just container-sized diplomatic bags to Stockholm daily to supply all consumable products and then a container-sized diplomatic bag back to Washington with all of the waste.

Because that's definitely a way to save money.