In Kivik, the Baltic town in southeast Sweden where I'm spending this remnant of vacation, it's all about packing. The Volvo station wagons loaded with suitcases move towards Stockholm, Malmö, Lund. In mid-August everything starts again. Schools reopen from Monday and back to work. The electoral campaign also starts: on 19 September the Swedes vote and all the polls predict the victory of the Social Democrats. Jacob Wallenberg, heir to the family that indirectly controls about half of the Stockholm stock exchange (Ericsson, Abb, Electrolux, SAS are headed by Investor, the group's financial aircraft carrier) fears a radical turn to the left and has expressed his and his peers' concern of him.
The moderate coalition led by Frederik Reinfeldt has not governed badly, on the contrary it has ensured a good growth rate for a long time while the rest of Europe was in a black crisis (the only serious slip-up is the fault of the central bank which raised rates last year), has opened and modernized a panting welfare state, where the whole public has reduced efficiency, increased costs, lowered the level of services, starting with education. The mixed healthcare system tested in Stockholm works, the so-called "free schools" (always state-owned, but autonomous) have attracted the best teachers and students. However, after eight years and two mandates, the Swedes want to change.
If all goes as planned, the winner will be a former trade unionist, former head of the metalworkers. A Swedish Landini? Not exactly because the metalworkers represent the working class aristocracy, less radical than in Italy. However Kjell Stefan Löfvenis is a hard and pure social democrat who promises more public spending and above all more taxes. The theme of taxes is central to the political controversy: even in a country where the myth of the state survives and with it the myth of high taxes to obtain public services, the discontent (not only of the rich, but of the middle classes and dependent workers) has fueled various protest movements not only on the far right. The women's party, still in its cradle, could end up in Parliament and is demanding that taxes be used in a feminist way. Ecologists, on the other hand, to improve the environment and close (twenty-four years after the referendum) the nuclear power plants which still supply three quarters of the electricity.
Political fragmentation has made its way here too and there is the risk that no one will obtain a clear majority, therefore there is increasing talk of forming a grand coalition on the Germanic model, a political formula never adopted, which until recently was considered taboo. And yet there are problems that no party can solve alone or with traditional allies. The consensus-based model, an almost century-old pillar of Sweden, today requires an expansion beyond the traditional left/right boundaries.
An interesting debate, for now entirely within the political class, but it can become much broader in the face of the question that really distresses people: the Russian escalation, the neo-imperial aims of Vladimir Putin. Here "Ivan" has always been considered public enemy number one. And now the worst nightmares are materializing so much that the government has increased military spending and has decided to expand the conscription to strengthen the army's personnel. Foreign Minister Carl Bildt was one of the negotiators for Ukraine's entry into the EU and his tooth is poisoned. In the Financial Times he wrote a vehement article to explain the dangers of pointillism to those in Europe who pretend not to understand, that is above all to the Germans and Italians.
Sweden does not want Federica Mogherini as high representative of foreign and security policy. The opinion of insiders is that the foreign minister made a serious mistake, not only in form but in substance, when she paid tribute to Putin. You did not act as a representative of the entire EU and even today you continue not to speak with the community voice despite Italy being the current president. Perhaps it is exaggerated to consider what was probably just a gaffe a snub, but the sensitivity of the Nordic countries and those close to Russia should not be underestimated. For them we are already in a new cold war and no levity or beginner behavior is allowed.
After all, this is the attitude towards Renzian Italy. Gone are the days of Silvio Berlusconi, the dark lord of telecracy, even in the eyes of moderates and conservatives. But those of Mario Monti, the technocratic hope that the center-right government liked, soon passed. Matteo Renzi's resounding victory surprised everyone: energy, youth, women (the 50% share in government goes beyond even feminists' expectations). But, down-to-earth as they are, little accustomed to flights of fancy and astonishing promises, given the smoke the Swedes also want to see the roast. The data on the Italian economy, which anticipated the slowdown in the whole of Euroland, alarmed the political and business worlds.
Everyone, from economists to the average citizen, is wondering why the European cure hasn't worked. Sweden is a virtuous country with low public debt (40% of GDP) and high growth (gross product has risen by 10 points since 2006), yet bitter medicine has created acute divisions here too. Social differences have long remained hidden from the public eye and mitigated by redistributive policies, now they appear in the light of the sun, both Maseratis and bums are circulating on the streets. Unemployment has fallen, but remains stuck at eight per cent, considered too high. Despite a labor market where flexibility now prevails over security, full employment appears to be a distant mirage.
At this point the drive to recover the recipes of the past, those before the crisis, prevails. The pendulum swings again. It won't work, say the wise old men, but nobody knows how to propose anything new. The European Union is faltering, the Russian bear is sharpening its claws, immigration has transformed cities where riots in the suburbs are now recurring, safety and security become the two domestic priorities. “Yes, we remained secluded in our Nordic paradise for a long time – a director friend who has worked extensively on the continent tells me – but we are not the exception. Crisis, immigration, security is the perverse triangle that blocks the whole of Europe”. In short, the bells of the Baltic ring for us too.
