The 2024 edition of Åre Business Forum began on Wednesday with Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson as the opening speaker. This year's program focuses on how businesses can strengthen Sweden, the Nordics, and Europe for increased resilience, sustainable growth, and competitiveness, covering topics like geopolitics, macroeconomics, entrepreneurship, innovation, defense, security, growth opportunities, leadership, space, and AI. Kristersson gave a geopolitical overview and its consequences for business and trade at the forum, which is held for the 16th year and usually gathers around 600 visitors from Sweden, Europe, and the USA.
Meanwhile, Sweden's public broadcaster SVT faces a funding crisis partly due to increased costs when TV4 and other commercial channels left the terrestrial network at the turn of the year. SVT must remain in the terrestrial network because it is part of the emergency preparedness mission, but the government's proposition states that if other media companies leave during the license period and this leads to significantly increased costs for public service companies, this should be seen as an extraordinary cost and not included in the funding decision. SVT's board has requested extra funding for the increased expense but has not yet received a decision from the government. The opposition believes the issue is not being handled quickly enough and that the government can take money from the so-called public service account to cover the fee. Kulturnyheterna sought Ulf Kristersson for comment, and he referred back to the culture minister.
This is very important. Here, probably a number of the companies that we in ten-fifteen years will think are some of Sweden's most successful are started.
Separately, the renovation of the prime minister's official residence has drawn attention due to costs and involvement of Kristersson's wife. Ulf Kristersson became Sweden's Prime Minister in October 2022 and moved with his wife Birgitta Ed into the official residence at Sagerska palatset, which the government rents furnished from the state property agency Statens Fastighetsverk. New prime ministers can adapt the residence to personal preferences at taxpayer expense, known as 'hyresgästanpassning', and Kristersson and his wife have used this adaptation more than previous prime ministers, including long after moving in. Items like art, curtains, paintings, exclusive cushions, tablecloths, and rugs have been purchased by the agency based on the tenant's requests, with costs billed to the government through a rent supplement. Expressen's review shows it is the wife Birgitta Ed, not the prime minister, who initiates home decoration requests directly to SFV officials. In March 2023, an architecture firm billed 19 work hours over three days related to the kitchen rug for the prime minister couple, and in April, interior architects warned they exceeded the adaptation budget by nearly 50,000 SEK in work hours, mainly for the kitchen rug. The kitchen rug cost 7400 SEK, while architects billed 27,400 SEK, making labor nearly three times the rug's price. Choosing a kitchen table required eight hours from an architecture firm on December 7, 2022, to find a table deliverable before Christmas, and after Christmas, Birgitta Ed contacted SFV about the table's height, leading to considerations like sending it to a carpentry to cut centimeters.
On the policy front, Kristersson has promised to eradicate serious gang crime within four years if he continues leading Sweden, and fresh statistics show shootings have decreased by 75% in the first quarter of 2026 compared to the first quarter of 2022. The number of injured and dead in shootings has decreased equally much. Justice Minister Gunnar Strömmer lists factors like new police tools, preventive measures, harsher penalties, and changed work methods as reasons for the decrease. However, Kristersson warns that a power shift in the fall could reverse the development.
I think that most people want to decide themselves how they put together their grocery bag.
Globally, oil and gas prices are soaring due to the US and Israel's war against Iran, with Iranian attacks on ships in the Strait of Hormuz driving up oil prices. Iran attacked a large gas facility in Qatar in response to Israeli attacks on its gas fields, and in Europe, gas prices have doubled since the war started three weeks ago, reaching the highest level since 2022 when the Russian gas tap was shut off. Many countries have redirected gas and oil imports from Russia to Gulf states in recent years. Recent weeks of war have led to sharply increased energy prices worldwide, affecting Swedish households, and Kristersson will hold a press conference to present measures against high energy prices, with Jimmie Åkesson, Ebba Busch, and Simona Mohamsson participating.
At the EU summit in Brussels, energy prices and wars in Iran and Ukraine overshadowed other issues, with growing discontent over the cost of the EU's climate transition, including proposals to scrap a ban on new fossil fuel cars from 2035. Ten countries, including Poland, Italy, and Austria, demand a review of the EU's emissions trading system, with Italy advocating its abolition, but many EU countries, including Sweden, defend the ETS as crucial for the transition. Kristersson sought to protect Swedish bottleneck revenues at the EU summit, getting guarantees that the money stays in Sweden.
All of Europe is currently panicked by the gas price.
NATO uncertainty under Donald Trump adds to European security concerns, as Trump has repeatedly threatened to leave NATO, leading to talks about a 'European NATO' with Sweden participating. Kristersson declines to comment on NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte's actions, including calling Trump 'Daddy'. There is an ongoing war on the European continent that will be formative for European security for generations to come, and the rules-based order since WWII is on shaky ground, transatlantic bonds are being questioned, economic growth is mostly in China and the US, and free trade seems slightly out of fashion.
US President Donald Trump demanded Iran open the Strait of Hormuz within 48 hours or face new threats to its energy infrastructure, and Iran responded with threats to close the strait completely and expand the war further.
We fundamentally see the ETS system as a success and an important tool also in the future.
The Swedish government is working with three scenarios to assess economic impact, including a regime change in Iran leading to less aggressive tone. On trade, Sweden and the European Union are prepared to retaliate against US trade policies, with the preferred option being to negotiate a deal to avoid growing trade barriers and a trade war. If negotiations fail, the EU stands ready with countermeasures as a big trading power globally. The goal of Sweden and the EU is not retaliation but to lower tariffs and increase trade with the US and other countries, as increased trade has made populations more prosperous and the world safer.
Sweden transformed from one of the poorest countries in Europe to one of the richest over a 100-year journey, according to historical analysis, with the Stockholm stock exchange opening in 1863 as one of the first of its kind in the world. Reasons for this transformation include an open approach to trade, access to natural resources, industrialisation, technological development, social reforms, and education for all. For a small country with a limited home market, being innovative and internationally competitive is key for economic growth, and Sweden today has a mix of big companies founded over 100 years ago and younger companies at the forefront of technologies. Sweden has had and still has many inventors and entrepreneurs turning ideas into business, and keeping and developing this tradition of innovation is a major policy ambition for the government. Sweden will continue working to improve competitiveness in both Sweden and Europe.
In the long run, we cannot count on the US to bear the lion's share of the defense of Europe.
Defense policy has seen radical shifts, with the Ulf Kristersson government spearheading military rearmament and building a more resilient civil society through Total Defence, a two-pronged strategy aimed at mobilising armed forces and a militarised civil society to resist invasion, which defined Sweden during the Cold War. In 1964, Sweden could mobilise 800,000 soldiers, had one of the world's largest air forces, and a reserve society with underground bunkers and supplies, with wartime posting including both people and companies, such as doctors, teachers, mechanics, marketing experts, Saab, and Ericsson. Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson served as a platoon commander for the Signal Regiment in Enköping between 1983 and 1984. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, analysts concluded there was no longer a need for Total Defence, viewing it as inefficient against asymmetrical threats, leading to a pivot to Operative Defence, a doctrine centred on a small professional force for international operations, often within the UN. Defence spending fell from 3.8% of GDP in 1960 to 1% in 2017, and conscription was made dormant in 2010, with the turn to Operative Defence presupposing that Russia was no longer a geopolitical rival to Sweden. However, resurgence of Russian irredentism and military operations in Ukraine and Georgia made invasion defence-planning salient, and in 2012, Supreme Commander Sverker Göranson announced Sweden could hold out for a week against an armed invasion on its own. In 2015, Sweden decided to raise defence spending for the first time in decades, followed by reactivating conscription in 2017.
Fiscally, the 2024 budget amendments include a 6 billion kronor addition to local governments for health care, and additional spending on defense and infrastructure. Ulf Kristersson's government has pledged to run a cautious fiscal policy that doesn't contribute to fueling price increases, and it has been encouraged by a string of inflation prints showing a clear downward trend. Inflation data shows price increases approaching the central bank's 2% target, which could enable rate cuts in May or June, though the economy contracted for three consecutive quarters in 2023. The government expects 0.7% growth this year, and unemployment to increase to 8.3% from 7.7% in 2023.
Nothing in daily NATO cooperation has changed, and we should focus more on actions than words.
On tax policy, a temporary tax reduction until December 31, 2027, affects grocery stores, gas stations, street kitchens, cafés, and restaurants. During Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson's visit to Gävle, the focus was on discussing prices and food tax in the store.
Within the government, the Sweden Democrats want to keep the current EU decision-making order, unlike other government parties.
We live in an 'extremely uncertain world situation' with two wars of unclear outcome.
It would be 'good' to introduce the euro in Sweden.
I welcome the debate about introducing the euro that has taken off after the inflation shock.
The Moderate Party's stance on the euro has been known for some time.