The Domestic Perspective: Impact on Swedish Party Politics
| Author | NICHOLAS AYLOTT |
| DOI | 10.1177/0010836702037002984 |
| Published date | 01 June 2002 |
| Date | 01 June 2002 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Cooperation and Conflict: Journal of the Nordic International Studies Association
Vol.37(2): 219–226. Copyright ©2002 NISA
Sage Publications (London, Thousand Oaks, CA and New Delhi)
0010-8367[200206]37:2;219–226;023984
The Domestic Perspective: Impact on
Swedish Party Politics
NICHOLAS AYLOTT
Introduction
The EU Council Presidency does not generally have much long-term
impact on the politics of the state that holds it. The period does not affect
the everyday legal, political and economic obligations and opportunities
that a member state necessarily endures or enjoys. In the Swedish case,
though, the Presidency did help to focus some ongoing domestic debates.
The EU summits held in Sweden during the first half of 2001 were oppor-
tunities for various political groups — perhaps most prominent among
them the local chapter of the Attac movement — to protest against the pur-
ported negative consequences of global economic integration. The meet-
ings also attracted more militant, foreign activists. Indeed, if most Swedes
were to cite a lasting image of the Presidency, it would probably be the
shocking scenes of violence that surrounded the summit in Malmö and,
especially, the European Council in Göteborg in mid-June. This, in turn,
raised a debate about public order; the Göteborg police had been woefully
unprepared for disorder on such a scale.
Yet these events, painful as they were for Swedes in general and their
government in particular, were essentially ephemeral. Meanwhile, the gov-
ernment was hoping that the Presidency would intervene more benignly in
another ongoing national debate, that about Sweden’s role in the EU.
Membership can be counted as a valence issue in most member states, with
no significant political force opposed to it; in some, the desirability of
further integration is also subject to something near consensus. Neither
contingency applies in Sweden. Swedes are the only citizens of the Union
among whom a greater proportion opposes membership than supports it
(European Commission, 2001). With this is mind, the government saw the
Presidency as a great opportunity to try to persuade voters of the benefits
of the EU. Joining became a prospect with the end of the Cold War. Since
then, the problem for the Swedish political system has been that the two
major cleavages that shaped electoral behaviour and the party system,
those of class and centre–periphery conflict, seem to have been reactivated
by the issue of integration (Jahn, 1999). In very broad terms,the southern,
urban, middle class has been keen on the EU, and the geographical, social
and economic periphery has been sceptical (Gilljam, 1996).This has caused
difficulties for party alliances that straddle one of these cleavages, which,to
SYMPOSIUM ON THE SWEDISH 2001 EU COUNCIL PRESIDENCY
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