Lee Miles - Sweden and European Integration

LEE MILES
Centre For European Union Studies (CEUS) University of Hull

First published 1997 by Ashgate Publishing

Reissued 2018 by Routledge

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Copyright Lee Miles 1997

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A Library of Congress record exists under LC control number: 97013479

ISBN 13: 978-1-138-34575-1 (hbk)

ISBN 13: 978-1-138-34579-9 (pbk)

ISBN 13: 978-0-429-43767-0 (ebk)

Index

It is always gratifying when eminent academics from other countries take an interest in Sweden, particularly in a field which is of special interest to me. Over the decades, the international academic community has shown interest in Sweden, above all in our way of tackling welfare and income distribution issues. Well known examples include John Kenneth Galbraith and Marquis Childs who wrote about the Swedish model. However, it is important that modern-day Sweden also becomes the object of academic analysis. Events in Sweden after 1989 need to be subjected to international scrutiny and interpretation.

Swedens membership of the EU was a revolutionary event for the whole of our society. We shed our outside identity and joined the Community. Sweden had previously had the best solution to all problems, but now suddenly we were experiencing concrete cooperation with others who considered their solutions to be the best - cooperation of an intensity we had not previously experienced. All changes of identity involve not only new opportunities but also problems and difficulties in adapting. Foreign policy became domestic policy. Domestic policy became foreign policy. Constitutional and administrative changes followed. To be effective in Brussels, we had to speak with one voice while, at the same time, democracy required that many voices were heard. And all this took place at a time when legitimate demands for a sound economy led to the most extensive programme of budgetary reorganisation in the history of our country. The changes and deterioration were attributed to the EU by many Swedes.

Personally, I believe in progress and remain an ardent supporter of European cooperation. I have been, and continue to be, deeply committed to the process. I served in the Prime Ministers Office for several years in the 1980s and 1990s and was responsible for research. Thanks to the EUs framework programmes on research in which we participated in our capacity as members of EFT A, I learned a great deal about the functioning of the EU. As a Member of Parliament I worked to promote Swedens EU membership. In my capacity as chairman of the Parliamentary IGC 96 Committee I led the work of informing the general public and stimulating the debate on the issues to be included in a new treaty. As Minister for Foreign Trade I saw in practical terms what a difference EU membership makes to a countrys ability to exert influence, when I took part in the first World Trade Organisation (WTO) intergovernmental conference in Singapore. Sweden was able to exert much greater influence than would have been the case if we had not been a member of the EU, something which some other non-EU countries discovered. In the Social Democratic Party, to which I belong, I am responsible for EU issues, including both Nordic and European assignments.

Lee Miles is launching the concept of the Swedish Diamond. His main thesis is that the tension between Swedens political and economic relationship with Europe determines the link to the European Union. The four main points of the Swedish Diamond are consensual democracy, the countrys corporate model, the high levels of economic interdependence and the pressures emanating from the external strategic environment. In terms of political science methodology. Miles work is gifted and at the same time concrete. He captures the historical train of events leading to EU membership and demonstrates how and why primarily the Swedish establishment changed its attitude to membership.