Björklund sees energy, taxation and education issues as key to Sweden’s future

 
Sture Lindmark, ISAK Information & Public Affairs introduced Jan Björklund.

As Björklund recalls from his childhood, “We had a box in the kitchen and my mother insisted that we put all our spare change into it, and then we sent the money to a children’s charity in Asia. Now those children are buying our car factories.”
Fast-forwarding to the future, he recounted a telling encounter with a parent-teacher association at an international school in Asia. Many of the western parents were pleading with teachers to give their children less homework. The Asian parents were demanding just the opposite.




Welmer Blom, Director General, Air France-KLM-Delta with Björn Savén, IK Investment Partners

Given the infected debate over grades in Swedish schools, Björklund made his position clear: “The Swedish educational system needs to be able to meet the needs of both slow and gifted learners. We cannot abolish inequality and learning gaps by abolishing grades. If we abolish formal evaluation systems, then informal ones will replace them.”


Sture Lindmark, Björn Riese, Mannheimer Swartling, Welmer Blom, Air France- KLM-
Delta, Clas Romander, Delphi Advokatbyrå, Björn Savén, IK Investment Partners

As a senior politician in an election year, Björklund didn’t miss the liberal high ground, stating that “the market economy is the greatest invention of humankind”, rejecting both over-regulation and protectionism. His goal:  Sweden should become “as successful in the 21^st century as it was in the 20^th.”

According to Björklund, the Swedish tax system is not attractive enough to people working in jobs involving high-knowledge content. The current expatriate tax reduction should be made more generous, pushing beyond its current three-year limit. In addition, applying for the reduction needs to be brought in line with modern international recruiting processes: an applicant needs to know if she is eligible for a reduction when she is considering moving to Sweden to accept the job offer – not months later.

On the energy issue, 50% of Sweden’s energy is currently provided by 10 nuclear reactors that will be closed in 10-15 years – but replaced with what? Because wind power – even heavily subsidized – cannot increase its current 2% market share to much more than 5-8% in this time frame.  Björklund sees three alternatives:

The first, which he favors, is to build a new nuclear reactor. Since the construction lead time is about 12-13 years, this makes energy one of the major issues of the September election. The second would be to import even more electricity from Denmark and Germany, or even to import Russian gas, which would be problematic –  “It’s gas, and it’s Russian.” The third alternative is unthinkable: a 25-30% reduction in core industrial activity, with several hundred thousand jobs and billions in revenue lost.




Question from Björn Savén to the Minister of Education

 After fielding questions ranging from pharmaceutical job security to how US grades are evaluated for Swedish equivalence, the minister appealed for more involvement from the business community in political initiatives – such as the many ongoing government-proposed reforms.


The participants enjoyed the Sheraton breakfast.

In particular, we need to hear more from business leaders about the real issues involving energy and the “expert tax”. “When I say things, it’s called ‘making political points’,” says Björklund. “We have to hear the truth from industrial leaders.”

Written exclusively for AmCham by Robbin Battison, Battison & Partners 
Photos by Rob Nelson