Mr President, as you will appreciate, Mr Olle Schmidt’s report is being read with great interest in Sweden, which is to hold a referendum on the introduction of the euro in September. Item 6 of this report states that the introduction of the euro is part of the Treaty obligations for all the Member States, including Sweden in other words. Item 5 states, however, that referendums are to be held and that the outcomes of these must be respected, even if they entail rejecting the introduction of the euro. This comes across as being extremely self-contradictory. Mr Olle t hopes that the Swedish people will vote ‘yes’ and so resolve this contradiction. There is not much, however, to indicate that they will do so. On the contrary, the ‘no’ camp is at present very clearly in the lead, by ten per cent according to the latest poll. The trend suggests that this lead will become ever greater. It may also be worth Parliament’s knowing that, among those who say ‘no’, are quite a few ministers in the Swedish Government, including the minister for trade and industry, Leif Pagrotsky, at least two former presidents of the Swedish Central Bank and a long list of highly regarded economists, who all believe that Sweden should vote ‘no’. The situation does not therefore reflect the classic picture of an educated Europhile élite and an uninformed populace. What we have instead is a political debate demanding objectivity and arguments on both sides. Sweden has a well-run economy. In the years during which Sweden has not been involved in cooperation concerning the euro, its economy has, in almost all respects, been strengthened in relation to those of the eurozone countries. Swedish industry traditionally asserts that the euro community is at all events good for trade. The business ’paper, Affärsvärlden has recently shown that this too is not the case. The economists sympathetic to EMU cannot deny this state of affairs. They therefore say, as Mrs Grönfeldt Bergman just did, that the arguments in favour of EMU are not economic but political. It does not sound especially convincing when it is economists who say this, as if they were arguing in favour of entering this political union on grounds contrary to those of practical economic sense. It is not easy to sell this message to the Swedish people. The truth is that EMU has not been the success it was expected to be. The Stability and Growth Pact is coming up against evermore criticism, and economic stagnation is increasingly widespread. For Sweden, the German economy is particularly important, but it is a difficult task right now to convince the Swedish people to make their future dependent upon the German economy. This issue concerns not only Sweden, but also the UK and Denmark. We shall soon also have a range of new Member States that are also outside the framework of cooperation concerning the euro. In those countries, too, there may perhaps be referendums on the euro and, as a result, the euro may be rejected there. In that situation, the definitive question must be asked: what should the EU and the European Central Bank do if Sweden and perhaps other Member States were to elect to stay outside the currency union? Is it possible to contemplate a euro community that is voluntary in character? What, in actual fact, do the Commission and the Council have to say about these matters? (The President cut off the speaker)

Political group: GUE-NGL