Sweden: Another Awkward Partner?

2444Ch16 3/12/02 2:06 pm Page 369 16 Karl Magnus Johansson Sweden: another awkward partner? Introduction: reluctant yet faithful Scholars of the European Union must lift the lid off the ‘black box’ of domestic politics to understand the behaviour of Member States in the integration processes. In this chapter, we will move inside the Swedish polity by analysing domestic constraints and institutional characteristics. The overarching aim is to capture the fundamentals of Sweden as an EU member, thereby identifying the primary actors involved in the policy- cycle. Joining late, Sweden has faced strong pressures of adaptation both at the state and societal levels. As the Union has advanced and become an increasingly complex organisation, countries seeking membership and new Member States are faced with a more difficult and steeper learning curve than the founding members. At the same time, latecomers are in a position to learn from the experiences of others. Sweden joined the Union in January 1995. The decision to seek membership can be seen as a logical consequence of the interdependence between the strongly export-reliant Swedish economy and the West European economies.1 Although officially neutral, Sweden has since long been strongly associated with West Europe, both economically and politically.2 Swedish economic forces actually joined the Common Market before membership was formally and politically approved. Just like in Britain and Denmark, membership has been justified primarily by the political elites on economic grounds, which provided the rationale for requesting membership in the first place and provoked unrealistic expec- tations of economic benefits and thereby continued to haunt the elites, broadly in favour of membership. It is also important to emphasise that Sweden entered the Union at a time of economic recession. At the same time, however, there clearly were political determinants behind the decision to apply for membership. The argument of increasing political influence was often employed by political leaders when arguing the case of joining the Union.3 Leading social democrats pointed out that Karl Magnus Johansson - 9781526137364 Downloaded from manchesterhive.com at 09/25/2021 05:41:49AM via free access 2444Ch16 3/12/02 2:06 pm Page 370 370 Member States and the European Union the nation state is no longer enough and that meant cross-national borders had to be found.4 In other words, those leaders were willing to ‘trad[e] off some of their de jure sovereignties for a guaranteed say in effective policy- making’.5 The matter of full EC membership rose to the top of the Swedish political agenda in a short period of time. The governing social democrats took a decisive step in this direction in October 1990, in the context of the management of an acute economic crisis. Later that year, the parliament (Riksdagen) voted in favour of applying for EC membership by 289 votes to 28, with the reservation that it must be in a form compatible ‘with the retention of neutrality’.6 The membership application was handed to the Dutch EC presidency in the Hague on 1 July 1991. The negotiations for Sweden’s accession to the Union were formally opened on 1 February 1993 and outstanding issues were resolved in March 1994. Overall, the deal reached in 1994 was not a bad one for Sweden. As Miles (1998) has argued, ‘the Swedish negotiators, for the most part, gained a generous agreement from the Community and this was primarily due to the concerns of both sides at the size of domestic opposition to the country becoming a full member’.7 It seems, therefore, that the Eurosceptical public may be more of an asset than a liability for Swedish negotiators and decision-makers, playing two-level or even multi- level games in multiple arenas.8 That public opinion provides a safety valve was also shown in connection to the social democratic government’s justification for not joining EMU in the first wave. During the accession negotiations and since, Sweden has highlighted particularly Swedish issues and has been allowed to leave a distinct Swedish imprint on the common EU agenda. The importance to strike a good deal with the Union has been considered especially urgent to compensate for the weak support for European unity in Swedish public opinion. In fact, Eurobarometer data has confirmed that the Swedes are the most Eurosceptic of all citizens in the Union. This situation results in restricted room for manoeuvre for Swedish decision-makers and will continue to do so given the persistence of anti-EU sentiments among the Swedes. It appears that European integration has become a new cleavage in Swedish politics.9 The pattern of party support and opposition to EU membership still reflects the position of the referendum in November 1994. Accordingly, the Left Party and the Green Party are against, at least nominally, whereas the Social Democratic Party, the Liberal Party, the Moderate Party, the Christian Democratic Party and the Centre Party remain principally in favour. At the same time, however, there is opposition to supranational integration within all the Swedish political parties. Although there has been a consensual style to Swedish EU policy, especially when supposedly ‘national interests’ are at stake, the political priorities are very much those of the social democrats. From the outset, a Karl Magnus Johansson - 9781526137364 Downloaded from manchesterhive.com at 09/25/2021 05:41:49AM via free access 2444Ch16 3/12/02 2:06 pm Page 371 Sweden 371 priority was to turn away the debate from institutional issues in particu- lar. As a non-member at the time, Sweden was not in a formal position to influence the contents of the Maastricht Treaty. Nevertheless, leading social democrats were critical of the focus on institutional reform and monetary union. They wanted to put other issues on the EU agenda, notably employment. At the same time, politicians across the political spectrum seemed happy about the insertion in the treaty of the subsidiar- ity principle, conveniently defining it in terms of ‘nearness’.10 The social democrats have invested enormously in committing the Union to a Swedish-style active labour market policy. Accordingly, employment had top priority in the 1996–97 IGC, resulting in a separate title on employment in the Amsterdam Treaty.11 Predictably, this was considered a victory by the Swedish social democrats. In the IGC, Sweden emphasised issues presumed to be of concern, such as equal opportunities between men and women, consumer protection, the environment, and openness, or transparency, in addition to employment.12 Sweden reluctantly accepted the flexibility clause, which implies that those Member States that want to could go on with co-operation and integration without having all partners on board.13 For Sweden, as one of the smaller EU members, the notion of flexibility was seen as favourable for the larger Member States, eventually forming a hard core, but it was stressed that flexibility would be of limited use given the right of veto and also for reasons of solidarity among Member States. The Swedish government was also opposed to changes in the rules for QMV in the Council and to changes in the composition of the Commission. One can detect a growing awareness on the part of the Swedish government that supranationalism in the sense of strong EU institutions and decision-making procedures could be advantageous for the relatively smaller Member States, fearing the emergence of a directoire among larger states. However, this is difficult to communicate in a country where the influence of Sweden in the Union is widely measured in terms of the number of votes, presently four, in the Council. Accordingly, the Swedish government has been reluctant to discuss deepening – that is, institutional reforms necessary or desirable in order to extend the number of EU members. Sweden has been an enthusiastic and unequivocal supporter of EU enlargement, performing the role of an advocate for the Baltic states. For the foreseeable future, the Swedish policy of non-participation in military alliances, with the aim of making it possible for the country to remain neutral in the event of a war in its vicinity, is likely to remain unchanged. However, the social democratic government has adopted a more pragmatic attitude towards existing alliances and joint operations, while rejecting proposals for a common defence in the Union along the lines of collective security. Unlike Britain and Denmark, Sweden has no formal ‘opt-out’ from the Karl Magnus Johansson - 9781526137364 Downloaded from manchesterhive.com at 09/25/2021 05:41:49AM via free access 2444Ch16 3/12/02 2:06 pm Page 372 372 Member States and the European Union third stage of EMU. Whether or not Sweden will join will also depend on the positions of the other Member States which decided not to join in the first wave, notably the decision by the British government. The reticent government position on EMU reflects the divisions in the social democratic party and also an overall anti-federalist attitude. There is a basic anti-federalist sentiment in Sweden, a unitary state, and in the political parties. In this regard, there is a deep-rooted ‘nation state logic’ behind Swedish membership of the Union.14 The broad support in favour of the welfare state and feelings of uniqueness, some say ‘welfare chauvinism’, imply that the instincts of most Swedes are that they would lose from closer integration in a federalist direction. Accordingly, the Union has been seen by the public largely as a threat rather than as an opportunity: To many voters, the immediate and very visible costs associated with the Europeanisation of Sweden far outweigh the potential but diffused benefits of membership, as professed by various establishment figures.

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