New EU creates power imbalance

Sweden is not a member of the Eurozone, and the new stability pact resolved at the EU summit on December 9 is the subject of considerable controversy in the country. Of the four conservative governing parties only the Liberals welcome the pact without reservations while the others have adopted a wait-and-see attitude. The liberal daily Upsala Nya Tidning sides with the sceptics and fears that Sweden will lose influence: "In what sort of a Union does an inner core take over responsibility for the common currency and at the same time for taxation, the labour market and economic policy in general, while the other countries have no option but to accept its dictates? ... How sustainable can an order be in the long term in which the votes of all countries and citizens don't carry the same weight even in formal terms? And how long can such a concentration of power in the core areas be accepted without far-reaching democratic reforms ensuing?"

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