LALALLALALALALLALALA I can’t hear you! I
have my fingers in my ears and I’m not going to look. Lalalallalalala. Things
are GREAT here in Sweden because we survived the Swedish crash of 1992
lalallalallala. Growth this year. Growth next year. Euro what? Euro dork. Ha!
Did you see what I did there? You’re a dork! Euro dork. Next week will be a
great sunny week!
So maybe you missed it. Today is the day
that Europe may come crashing down. While according to the US media Socialist
Europe is lying in wreckage and people are being forced to hunt and gather
food, the reality is that not much as changed for anyone here in Sweden. And
because of that, Swedish politicians seem to be keeping rather mum on much of
the subject of the EU and the Euro.
Yes, I realize that Sweden isn’t exactly IN
the Euro, but they certainly would be greatly affected if things went up in
smoke.
And today there is a big announcement
coming from European Commision head Borroso about whether Euro banks should grow
even closer together. There is an announcement expected from German courts
about whether or not the current bailout scheme is in line with German law, and
there is a great big old election in the Netherlands which could give credence
to antiEU parties. If anyone of these
misses the mark it might have some pretty serious consequences. Yeah. No biggie
here.
So what do Swedish politicians have to say
about this mess? What? You don’t hear them? Yeah, neither do I! Sure, Finance
Minister Anders Borg has been saying ‘Yeah, like nothing major is going to
happen for years. Good luck with that banking union Borroso’ But most of the
other politicians? Zero, zip, zilch.
Swedish Parliament, Riksdagen? They are all
like ‘EU? See you… we’ve got stuff at home to worry about’ as if stuff in the
EU didn’t effect stuff at home.
Everyone is playing ostrich and pretending
if they don’t look, it isn’t happening. Maybe its because the next election is
still a bit of a ways off, but I really wonder when Swedish politics is going
to start addressing some of these EU issues in a big way.
Posts
So what do you think they should do? They've been talking about the what-ifs for years so I imagine they've run out of things to say until something actually happens.
ReplyDeleteI think they should acknowledge the current situation. They have been talking about what-ifs for years, but now there is a crisis going on. Sweden is paying a lot of money for the bailout and is under the EU's thumb. I would like for some of the Riksdags members to talk about what they think Sweden should do in the future. and I would like to hear their opinions more about the situation in Spain and Greece. There is a huge growing divide in Europe between the successful countries and the failing countries. I'm glad Sweden is on the successful side, but I am confused by their political position. Reinfeldt has made a few statements to Riksdag saying he is getting annoyed by everything going on in the EU, but the response has been complete silence.
ReplyDeleteI think I am just amazed, having read so much about how in Swedish history Sweden just kind of stayed in the background in so many situations, to see it first hand - how the media and the politicians kind of talk about this in vague secondhand terms has been interesting.
Some media has been addressing it, but really not as much as I would have expected. Maybe I am just too used to an American 24 hour news cycle, which I am definitely glad to be rid of.
My company is certainly following the euro very closely - we get paid in EUR for a lot of our work (ca 50%) but we pay salaries in SEK. More importantly we have lost almost all recent tenders to EUR-area companies. We are just too expensive with a strong SEK. We are losing a lot of money - the only reason we haven't started firing people is because we are hoping for more business in Norway. It's a good thing to have rich neighbours, but we will probably start firing next year.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, I don't think politicians can do much whatever happens so I'm pretty indifferent about what they have to say.
Swedish politicians can't be too critical of the EU, with the exception of vänsterpartiet, miljöpartiet and sverigedemokraterna. All the other parties have to a great extent jumped on the EU bandwagon and if they start being too eurosceptic now they would be seen as opportunistic. As long as Borg say he won't pay for Euro bailouts I think most Swedes are content.
ReplyDelete