This paper proposes and discusses a soft-linking procedure between a Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) model and an energy system model with the aim to improve national energy policy decision making. Significant positive and negative experiences are communicated. Specifically, the process of soft-linking the EMEC and TIMES-Sweden models is presented, and unlike previous work we rely on the use of multiple direction-specific connection points. Moreover, the proposed soft-linking methodology is applied in the context of a climate policy scenario for Sweden. The results display a partly new description of the Swedish economy, which when soft-linking, generates lower CO2-emissions in the reference scenario due to a decline in industrial energy demand. These findings point at the importance of linking bottom-up and top-down models when assessing national energy and climate policies. (C) 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.