The Swedish Regions and the European Union

Abstract

The regional level in Sweden has traditionally been comparatively weak. There is no history of federalism or of strong regional identities or governments in the Swedish polity. On the contrary, in a political system with a strong emphasis on national public welfare with equal access for every citizen, and adjustments to specific circumstances through local implementation and self-government, the national and municipal levels have been the main levels of government from the end of the eighteenth century. The major task of the intermediate level of elected governments, the county councils, has been to run hospitals and provide health services, because these required a larger population base than the municipalities could offer. Indeed, during the 1980s and in the beginning of the 1990s, an increasing number of voices were raised suggesting that the county councils should be abolished and their functions transferred to central government or to inter-municipal cooperative boards. Similar debates occurred in the other Nordic countries, apart from in Finland where a directly elected intermediate level had never been established (Sandberg and Ståhlberg 2000; Rose and Ståhlberg 2005; Sandberg 2005).

I am grateful for valuable comments on previous versions of this chapter from Åsa Edman at the Ministry of Finance, Håkan Ottosson at the Swedish Association of Local Authorities and Regions and Inge Andersson at the North Sweden European Office in Brussels.