REINFELDT, BILDT, AND BORG: MAKING THE COALITION

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 STOCKHOLM 001400 SIPDIS SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 11/16/2017 TAGS: PGOV PREL PINR SW SUBJECT: REINFELDT, BILDT, AND BORG: MAKING THE COALITION GOVERNMENT WORK REF: A. STOCKHOLM 1354 ¶B. STOCKHOLM 1101 Classified By: Ambassador Wood, reason 1.4 (b) and (d). Summary -------------- ¶1. (C) As Foreign Minister Bildt heads to Washington for the Annapolis Conference -- his third visit to Washington in two months -- we want to provide the domestic context to his new activist Swedish foreign policy. It has been a difficult first year for Prime Minister Fredrick Reinfeldt and the center-right governing coalition. While they have successfully carried out the tax and labor reforms promised voters, they continue to slide in the polls. Part of this drop is attributable to scandals, part to inexperience, and a good measure reflects angst among swing voters who feel threatened by the reforms. Nonetheless, the coalition appears to be ahead in the war of ideas and expects that reforms will yield fruit -- jobs, tax relief, and economic growth -- sufficient to carry the day in the 2010 election. Managing the coalition, Reinfeldt grants fiefdoms (Education, Industry, HEALTH ministries) to coalition partners while deferring to Foreign Minister Carl Bildt on international relations and Finance Minister Anders Borg on cross-cutting domestic programs. Bildt has demonstrated he sets the Swedish agenda on policy issues ranging from Kosovo to Iraq. End Summary. Paying the Price for Keeping Campaign Promises . . . -------------- -------------- ¶2. (SBU) Sweden's governing coalition took office on October 6, 2006, having won the election on the promise to get more Swedes working while preserving the cradle-to-grave welfare net they hold as a birthright. The government has been largely successful in implementing the adjustments it promised. It has done away with the wealth tax, reduced the property tax, and lowered unemployment and sick leave benefits, particularly for those on extended unemployment and long-term sick leave. In a country that is among the healthiest and most long-lived in the world, it has always been an anomaly that Swedes also have exceptionally high levels of absence for illness and early retirement for medical reasons. ¶3. (SBU) But to every silver lining there is a cloud: the coalition has a good start on fulfilling its reform platform, but reforms have proven more unpopular than expected and contributed to a sharp slide in the opinion polls. The coalition has fallen from 48 percent of the votes in the September 2006 election to 38-41 percent approval in November 2007 opinion polls. According to the polls, the opposition Social Democrat party alone has more support, 46 percent, than the four parties of the government taken together. Finance Minister Borg told the Ambassador November 16 he is concerned with the polls. Calls to reinstate more generous sick-leave rules and unemployment benefits have become rallying calls for the opposition. . . . and for Breaking the Rules -------------- ¶4. (SBU) The government's downward trend in the polls has been exacerbated by a series of scandals. Three ministers and three state secretaries have been forced to resign over hiring black market (untaxed) workers, failing to pay other administrative fees or taxes, public displays of bad judgment (ref A),or intra-party strife (ref B). The press has worked over the government with a public inquiry into how many of the State Secretaries (deputy ministers) admit to having employed workers without paying the employer portion of social security taxes (17 of 33, according to news service TT). But Still Winning the War of Ideas -------------- ¶5. (C) Urban Ahlin, the opposition Social Democrats' foreign policy spokesman as well as Deputy Chair of the Parliament's Foreign Affairs Committee, told us November 14 that the opposition intends to keep beating down the government with scandals. Ahlin was not sanguine about the Social Democrat's long-term prospects, despite their history of having governed Sweden 65 of the past 75 years and their soaring scores in the polls. "We are up now, but 2010 elections are a long way off. And we are behind in all the major cities: Stockholm, Malmo, Gothenburg." He also said that the Moderates and their coalition partners were winning the war of ideas. "There is no debate here," Ahlin said. "The government -- ours, theirs -- just makes decisions and puts them in force. The Moderates have a program. All we (the opposition) are doing is saying 'no'. We have no think tanks generating ideas, no alternative program." STOCKHOLM 00001400 002 OF 003 ¶6. (C) For its part, the coalition government has seen its economic reforms as a kind of stealth revolution. Moderate Party Secretary Per Schlingmann told us the reform program is "revolutionary" and will irrevocably change the structure of the welfare system. Schlingmann ("Sweden's Karl Rove"),was the ideological architect for the Moderate-led coalition victory a year ago. He dismissed to us the current poll results as a side effect of a necessary inoculation. The voters were a little ill-at-ease with their medicine, but the long-term effect on the HEALTH of the economy and labor market would be positive, and the polls would go up. Schlingmann said Reinfeldt hoped to push through the package of reforms remaining, including decreasing the power of the unions and making it easier to start businesses. He was confident that the polls would bottom out soon, as the benefits became visible, and the rebound would coincide with the run-up to the next elections in 2010. How the Coalition Works -------------- ¶7. (C) Moderates accounted for over half of the total votes received by the four coalition partners. They control the power ministries of Foreign Affairs, Defense, Justice, and Finance. The other three coalition party heads have Education, Industry, and Health. Prime Minister Reinfeldt has been criticized for his invisibility. In significant contrast with his predecessor, Goran Persson, he lets his ministers do the talking. In large measure, this amounts to ceding fiefdoms to the other coalition partners, and helps keeps the coalition together. But pundits note that Reinfeldt also seems to defer to fellow Moderates Foreign Minister Carl Bildt on international relations and Finance Minister Anders Borg on domestic and defense programs. For example, when the Ambassador asked Reinfeldt's foreign policy adviser Nicola Clase the government's position on Kosovo, she said she would have to check with Carl Bildt. For his part, Borg fought and won a budget battle with the Ministry of Defense dealing with defense procurement; this precipitated the resignation of the Defense Minister (ref B). ¶8. (C) According to those closest to him, Reinfeldt delegates effectively and has strategic vision. Critics complain that his lack of assertiveness means no ONE is in charge. They also note that he has surrounded himself with aides who lack experience and make novice mistakes, citing the incidents that forced resignations of several close associates, including his 35-year-old Chief of Staff (ref A). Reinfeldt's staffing challenges arise in part from a split within the Moderate party, with Reinfeldt and the less dogmatic and youngish "New Moderates" having won the election and the turf battle within the party, but lacking experience in bare-knuckled battles with the opposition. In our dealings with Reinfeldt, we find him engaging, exceptionally well informed, and strategically inclined, if a little stiff. ¶9. (C) On foreign policy, Bildt (with the departure of former Minister of Defense Odenberg, the last of the Moderate old guard still in office) is personally engaged on every issue of Euro-Atlantic interest. He seeks to have his own and Sweden's roles given due weight. Kosovo is an example. Bildt proposed cuts in 2008 of Sweden's troops in Kosovo from 385 to 250 because Sweden, a major donor and troop provider, is not on the steering board. He has also argued for the need to go slower in order to ensure EU unity. At the same time, he has placed himself squarely in the U.S.-EU nexus, including through his travel to Iraq and his pressure for the EU to do more there. He is widely seen as aspiring to the new position of new foreign policy head under the EU's proposed reform treaty. Getting to 2010 and Beyond -------------- ¶10. (SBU) Reinfeldt brought the coalition to power by convincing the electorate that he was not calling for radical change, just fine-tuning the welfare state. Yet his closest advisers call his changes revolutionary. Early indications are that his labor and tax reforms are working: unemployment is down, and the economy is booming. The economic growth rate for 2007 is estimated to be 3.4 percent, above the EU-wide figure of 2.9 percent. ¶11. (C) But the voters are nonetheless wary, concerned that with tightening of sick leave standards and decreases in unemployment benefits, the welfare safety net has been lowered closer to the ground. At the same time, reforms such as changes in the property tax -- billed as a benefit to all -- are coming under fire. Home owners -- and that includes most Swedes -- are increasingly suspicious that the tax reform is indeed revolutionary, and provisions such as a cap on property tax will largely benefit the well-to-do supporters of the Moderate and other "bourgeois" parties. Even these parties are finding their constituents restive STOCKHOLM 00001400 003 OF 003 with divestiture of partially state-owned companies (including the largest bank, the Swedish stock exchange, and the distributor of Absolute Vodka). Polls show 28 percent "for" and 49 percent "against" selling the government's interests in state-owned companies. ¶12. (C) For their part, business leaders are also not completely satisfied. They tell us the government has done a good job of improving the supply side of the labor market by increasing incentives to work, but not enough has been done to promote job growth through tax reductions and deregulation. They also say that government policies favor established large businesses but do not encourage entrepreneurship. For the time being, the economy's overall health and steady growth are keeping the job market growing. ¶13. (C) The government is banking on its early investment in reform to pay dividends in the midterm, with the good news peaking and reaching the pocketbook of the electorate as the 2010 election approaches. This would enable the center/right to achieve a second term -- a rarity for non-Social Democrat governments -- and give the Moderates and their allies an opportunity to seek more radical reforms, including in foreign policy. NATO membership is among the issues that the coalition has said publicly it will not take up in a first term -- but Schlingmann, among others, has told us privately could be on the agenda for a second term. WOOD