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EUROPEAN UNION

New poll: Swedish business leaders in favour of joining the Euro

Should Sweden ditch the krona and adopt the Euro as its currency? That’s what just over half of all business leaders who responded to a fresh survey think.

New poll: Swedish business leaders in favour of joining the Euro
Sweden is a member of the EU but has never joined the Euro. Photo: Henrik Montgomery/TT

Business magazine Dagens industri asked around 2,000 business leaders in Sweden whether they thought the country should join the Euro, and 51 percent said yes.

That’s an increase compared to 40 percent in the summer of 2020.

Similarly, 39 percent told the new survey that Sweden should keep the krona as its currency, a decrease from 54 percent in 2020.

Increasingly shaky global politics may be a factor behind the growing popularity of the Euro, according to Jonas Fritz, an opinion analyst for pollsters Ipsos.

“Just like opinion has shifted on the question of Nato, this is another sign that people want to move closer to other countries and be part of an international context,” he told Dagens industri.

Sweden joined the European Union in 1995 but didn’t adopt the Euro. In 2003, the country held a referendum on whether or not to join the Euro, but 56 percent voted no.

And recent polling suggests that despite business leaders’ change of heart, the general public is less convinced. Sixty percent told a survey by national number-crunchers Statistics Sweden in November 2022 that they would vote no if asked again.

The Swedish krona has fallen against the Euro and the US dollar in recent years. Today, one Euro costs 11.14 kronor, compared to 10.20 kronor in the summer of 2021.

Member comments

  1. People need to deeply rethink , a stable and a powerful EURO is always better, it was 11.14 when this article was written and today it is around 11.75 against a Swedish Krona in just 3 months. All of Sweden’s neighbours currency values are high and as far as I know Sweden’s currency value is the weakest today in Western Europe.

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PROPERTY

Swedish property market on steady upward climb

Is the Swedish property market coming back to life after a long period of hibernation? Recent figures suggest as much.

Swedish property market on steady upward climb

Swedish property prices rose for the fourth consecutive month in April – 5.8 percent since the turn of the year and 1.7 percent compared to the previous month, according to state-owned mortgage bank SBAB.

The price of a detached home rose 1.9 percent in April compared to March, and apartments rose by 1.2 percent.

SIX MISTAKES TO AVOID:

It’s not unusual for the property market to perk up in spring, but there’s a clear increase even adjusting for seasonal effects. 

“Summed up since the turn of the year, apartment prices have risen by over 7 percent. Even the estimated trend shows a clear increase, in other words prices are rising more than you would expect given the time of the year,” said SBAB chief economist Robert Boije in a statement.

A major reason behind the price increase is the expectation that Sweden’s central bank, the Riksbank, has stopped raising the country’s main interest rate and the hope that it might even cut the rate in its next announcement, which will come next week.

While this is expected to bump up the price of buying a property, it is on the other hand also likely to lead to lower mortgage rates.

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