“The possibility for us to carry out our election promises from the elections in 2002 will diminish if there is a no to the euro in the referendum,” Swedish prime minister Göran Persson said August 16, at a campaign event for the Social Democratic party that he leads.

The referendum manifesto of the social democrats warns: “A no for the euro will risk more instability on the markets for interests and currencies and a deeper recession. That would considerably decrease the space for reforms in Sweden in the future.”

The membership of most political parties in Sweden has been split over joining the EMU. This is also true of the major nationwide trade union federation LO (Landsorganisationen). Four national unions have taken positions in favor of Sweden adopting the euro and three have come out against. Others remain neutral.

There was little active campaigning for a “yes” vote until Persson launched the campaign at the end of April. He ordered social democratic ministers who were against the euro not to campaign publicly. Different opinion polls have indicated support for a “no” vote ranging from 44 percent to 51 percent at different times this year.  
 
Big business joins campaign
Since April several spokespersons for employers’ organizations and big companies have come out campaigning for a yes vote. In an interview published in the June 22 Göteborgsposten, Jakob Wallenberg, head of the dominant Wallenberg group, spoke in favor of Stockholm joining the EMU. According to Wallenberg, many of his contacts abroad are in favor of it, arguing that a larger euro-bloc would improve odds for competition against Washington and Tokyo.

Leif Johansson, chief executive officer of Volvo Trucks, has also declared himself for a yes vote, saying that EMU membership would help stabilize the currency, interest rates, and inflation. Both Johansson and Wallenberg, however, noted that if they lost the referendum it would not be a catastrophe. “It’s just another little uphill for industry,” Wallenberg stated.

On August 20 the CEO of Spendrup breweries, Jens Spendrup, said in an interview on Swedish Radio that joining the euro would make trade easier, make it cheaper to invest, and thus create more jobs. “I think we will get 10,000 new jobs,” he said. “We employers know what is good for us.” Joining the EMU fully would “make it easier to deal with high sick leaves, as well as dealing with wage systems and creating greater flexibility in hiring, everything that profits industry,” he stated.

“Flexibility” in wage scales and hiring is a code word used by the employers to describe their efforts to undermine national wage contracts and labor laws prohibiting firings without reason.

On August 26 Social Democratic foreign minister Anna Lindh and Ericsson CEO Carl-Henric Svanberg wrote a joint column in Dagens Nyheter, warning that export-oriented companies would leave Sweden if the no vote wins out.

In a poll among 100 CEOs of big Swedish companies, 92 said they would vote yes and three no.  
 
Dollar-pound bloc in the EU
The governments of the United Kingdom, Denmark, and Sweden chose not to be part of the euro when it was launched Jan. 1, 1999. At that time the European Union appeared weak relative to Washington and the euro looked “too shaky,” as the Swedish prime minister put it then.

This “dollar-pound bloc” has been a way of keeping the door open to more collaboration with Washington. But the prospect of serious competition between the euro, the U.S. dollar, and the Japanese yen has led the rulers in Denmark, the United Kingdom, and Sweden to reconsider, fearing their own interests will be sidelined.

While London is still debating whether to join the euro, the Swedish parliament voted to go ahead with a national referendum on the question late last year after a social democratic conference in March 2000 voted in favor of joining.

The referendum comes at a time when the economic situation in several big EU countries is worsening. Germany and Italy have been in a recession since the beginning of the year. Opponents of joining the EMU among the Swedish rulers use this reality to bolster their arguments for a “no” vote, which are cloaked in nationalistic terms.

Anders Ferm, Swedish ambassador to the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD, wrote in the June 7 issue of the Swedish daily Dagens Nyheter, “I believe Europe is entering a period of economic stagnation. Through the euro, which is rising in relation to the dollar and Asian currencies and thus diminishing the power to compete on export markets for the euro zone, and, just as important, through the stability pacts that have been called ‘idiotic,’ deflationary pressures have been created that are hard to overcome…. Saying yes to the euro then…becomes like tying your life boat to the Titanic!”

On July 11 Hans Eichel and Bo Ringholm, finance ministers of Germany and Sweden, respectively, wrote in the Swedish daily Svenska Dagbladet, “A coordinated economic policy and the common currency are ties that will strengthen Europe in a lasting way. That is why it would be of great benefit for our two countries if Sweden became a full member of the EMU.”

At the same time, German foreign minister Joschka Fischer, a member of the Green Party, joined widely publicized summer seminars in Visby, Sweden, where he argued that Stockholm should join the EMU.  
 
‘No’ campaign smacks of nationalism
The Green Party, the Left Party, and the bourgeois Center Party are campaigning for a “no” vote together with many leftist groups and activists. “Keep the Swedish krona and the Swedish national bank,” is the headline of one of the leaflets being distributed in Gothenburg. One such group, demonstrated under a banner that read “Save Swedish jobs.”

The Sweden Democrats, an incipient fascist group that got some of its candidates elected into municipal assemblies in last year’s elections, campaign against EMU membership under the slogan “Save the Krona!”

The Communist League and the Young Socialists in Sweden are the only organizations in the workers movement calling for a no vote, while at the same time explaining that the stance of the overwhelming majority of those campaigning for a “no” vote is Swedish nationalism, a reactionary obstacle to the interests of the working class and its allies (see statement below).
 
 
Related articles:
Neither euro nor Swedish krona  
 
 
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