Igor Gedilaghine Stockholm

Swedish companies, relatively unscathed by the European debt crisis, disliked the Swedish economic model’s inertia, wanted reforms to boost their competitiveness, and wanted to adopt the euro, their representatives said.

“I think Sweden should join the euro. We benefit a lot from the single market, which is not sustainable without the single currency,” said Urban Baeckstroem, who heads the Confederation of Swedish Enterprise, the country’s main employer’s organisation representing about 60 000 businesses.

EU member Sweden rejected the common currency in a 2003 referendum and Baeckstroem acknowledged that “we haven’t lost anything so far”, by standing outside the bloc.

According to a December poll however, nearly nine out of 10 Swedes want to hold onto their krona.

“It’s not a short-term matter for Sweden (but) more of a long-term one,” Baeckstroem said yesterday.

But if Sweden wants to remain competitive in the long run, industry players insist it must act soon, not only to move towards embracing the euro but also to reform Sweden’s womb-to-tomb welfare state, which is seen weighing heavily on business flexibility.

The problem, many say, is that Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt’s centre-right coalition government has proven hesitant to introduce far-reaching reforms since coming to power in 2006.

“They don’t have to do much because they didn’t promise much,” joked Elisabeth Thand Ringqvist, the head of the Swedish Federation of Business Owners.

While the Financial Times named Sweden’s Anders Borg the world’s best finance minister last year, Thand Ringqvist, who served as an advisor at the Swedish Enterprise Ministry between 2006 and 2010, said she felt he had done little but deal with the here and now.

The real question, she said, was “what do we need to do now to be somewhere in 10 years?”

And the main answer? “You need to loosen the laws. (The existing) laws lock people in,” she added, insisting that present labour laws in Sweden made it difficult for employees to change jobs and locations.

Reinfeldt recently proposed helping people change careers at 50, but according to Thand Ringqvist, current Swedish labour laws would prove a major obstacle to that plan, since employees who switch companies after 20 years lose all the benefits of seniority that otherwise largely shield them from lay-offs.

Reinfeldt also recently suggested gradually pushing Sweden’s retirement age up to 75 from 65, but the proposal was met with criticism.

“Why not 85?” ranted Baeckstroem, insisting that it was “more important to get young people to work than forcing people to work more”.

Not long ago, Swedes were on average entering the workforce at 21 years. – Sapa-AFP