{"id":253,"date":"2003-09-14T23:12:20","date_gmt":"2003-09-15T06:12:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stefangeens.com\/?p=253"},"modified":"2003-09-14T23:12:20","modified_gmt":"2003-09-15T06:12:20","slug":"its-nej","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stefangeens.com\/2001-2013\/2003\/09\/its-nej\/","title":{"rendered":"It's Nej"},"content":{"rendered":"

The no<\/em> side won by a wider margin than expected — 56.2% to 41.8% with 2.1% blank<\/a> — especially after polls in the last few days showed a dramatic surge for the yes<\/em> side. It’s clear now that those polled did not want to voice disagreement with Lindh’s views so soon after her murder, but that Swedes ended voting with their pocketbooks, as voters everywhere always doMalm\u00f6, Stockholm and a few towns along the Finnish border has yes<\/em> majorities, as they should, being the communties most exposed to euro economies.<\/span>.<\/p>\n

I’m convinced no<\/em> is the best choice for Sweden at the moment. Prime Minister G\u00f6ran Persson admitted as much when he said, in the final weeks of canvassing, that should the vote be yes<\/em>, he would only bring Sweden into EMU when EU finances are in better shape and Sweden’s economy is better aligned with those of euroland.<\/p>\n

But where Persson said “when,” I would have said “if.” Had I voted yes<\/em>, I do not think Persson would really have interpreted my vote as an economically skeptical stance towards an ever-larger EMU. Hence my vote had to be no<\/em>; this way I retain the ability to choose myself whether the case for joining ever becomes compelling.<\/p>\n

Will Sweden lose influence in Europe, as the yes<\/em> side warned? I think the opposite might well be true, especially given the resounding nature of the result. Watch Sweden influence the debate now, as European leaders ponder why their euro projects do not pass muster in a nation full of conscientious, informed, socially committed people. (This, at least, is the image Sweden enjoys abroad, even if Swedes themselves are often more self-critical.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The no side won by a wider margin than expected — 56.2% to 41.8% with 2.1% blank — especially after polls in the last few days showed a dramatic surge for the yes side. It’s clear now that those polled … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[7,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-253","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics-economics","category-sweden"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7eNhC-45","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stefangeens.com\/2001-2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stefangeens.com\/2001-2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stefangeens.com\/2001-2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stefangeens.com\/2001-2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stefangeens.com\/2001-2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=253"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stefangeens.com\/2001-2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stefangeens.com\/2001-2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=253"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stefangeens.com\/2001-2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=253"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stefangeens.com\/2001-2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=253"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}