Carl Bildt: "Militante anti-EU campagne domineert politiek debat in Zweden" (en)

EUOBSERVER / COMMENT - A year after the stunning result of the Euro referendum, the issue seems almost forgotten in Sweden.

The occasional economist points at the long-term advantages of staying outside for an economy as integrated with Euroland as the Swedish, but not even the news of Estonia and Lithuania joining ERM2 and preparing to become part of Euroland as fast as possible made any waves.

The issue is, for all practical purposes, dead for some years to come.

"Militantly" anti-EU

Instead, the big news in the European debate in Sweden is that the Social Democratic party has appointed a militant anti-EU personality as its new Secretary-General. Marita Ulvskog belonged, as Minister of Culture, to those that opposed the government's policy of joining the Euro, and also made that very clear. In the referendum on Sweden's membership of the EU in the autumn of 1994 she also belonged to the No camp.

Her appointment is certain to disappoint those that had hoped that the Social Democratic party, after the divisions that were obvious also in the European elections, would try to take a somewhat more active approach on the European issues.

But on her appointment, Ms. Ulvskog made clear that she had no intention of changing her views. Even if Prime Minister Persson is likely to put some restrictions on her in this respect, her top position in the party now also means that there will be clear limits to what the pro-Europeans inside it can do and achieve.

No pro-European movement

After the referendum defeat, there was talk of the pro-Europeans inside the different parties getting more active in trying to shape public opinion, but since then we have seen very little of that.

Prior to the June European Parliament election, there was instead a rather noticeable tendency by even essentially positive parties to play on more sceptical sentiments. But the only result this had was to boost the credentials of the explicitly sceptic Junilistan. It become the winner of the election, while the Social Democrats under Prime Minister Persson had their worst election since 1912 and even the pro-European Moderates had to suffer a slight setback.

This was by no means necessary. In both Estonia and Denmark, clear Europositive messages produced impressive election victories for Social Democratic parties. But in Sweden the saga of the vacillations of the Social Democrats seems to be continuing another round. Former MEP Göran Ferm, who lost out in the infighting inside the party, has recently been openly very critical of his party's obvious lack of leadership on the issues.

The appointment of Ms. Ulvskog as Secretary-General a year after the murder of pro-European respected Foreign Minister Anna Lindh and the stunning defeat in the Euro referendum is certainly not a good sign.

Carl Bildt was Prime Minister of Sweden from 1991 to 1994 and a leading campaigner for a "yes" vote in the referendum on the euro