Sweden’s euro referendum: The noes are ahead

Date: 06/09/03

Sweden's prime minister is struggling to win a yes to joining the euro

EVEN for the joggers picking their way through the blueberries along the quiet forest paths outside Stockholm there is no escape from the “Yes to the Euro” campaign. With just over a week before Swedes vote on whether to abandon the krona, even the trees are festooned with metre-high signs extolling the virtues of the single currency and warning against the dangers of staying outside. From the placards to the endless billboards, pages of newspaper adverts and streams of leaflets, the far larger resources of the euro's supporters are being used to the full. Backed by business, the yes side is probably outspending the no side by five to one.

It is not just its financial muscle. Sweden's great and good, ignoring traditional political divisions, are lining up to woo a euro-sceptic people. The Social Democratic prime minister, Göran Persson, stands shoulder to shoulder with his toughest rival, Lars Leijonborg of the economically right-wing Liberals. Trade union leaders team up with employers' associations. The foreign minister, Anna Lindh, the Social Democrats' heir apparent, hugs and kisses the boss of Ericsson, the country's industrial flagship.

The opinion polls are hardly budging. The lead for the noes has narrowed but is still 5-14 percentage points. And the riches of the yes side may be helping the no team by making it look like David to the pro-yes Goliath: the people versus the establishment.

In fact the no campaign's wayward organisation and its failure to throw up a charismatic leader means that the pugnacious Mr Persson lacks a clear opponent. He is chasing shadows - with a hint of desperation in his latest moves. After months of campaigning, he now says he never wanted a referendum in the first place and that, even with a yes vote, joining the euro may well be delayed if the terms offered are not good enough. Now it seems that both a yes and a no vote may actually mean “wait and see”.

Worse still, matters beyond the prime minister's control have come to the fore. Ructions over the stability pact, the euro zone's tool for ensuring budgetary discipline, have cast the German, French and Italian economies, comprising 70% of the zone's combined GDP, in a bad light. Naturally, the no side points to Sweden's strong public finances, faster growth and lower unemployment: plainly, they say, the country is better off outside.

So is the contest over? Mr Persson says not. In last year's general election the pollsters much underestimated his party's support. And in 1994, in the referendum on whether to join the European Union, Swedes swung towards a yes only in the last few weeks. Current polls still show plenty of undecided voters. They are Mr Persson's last hope.