Just Going Public Or Private Is Not An Innovation

Sweden has come far in the path towards an internal market in the EU. Minister for Trade Eva Björling says  that “the internal market serves as a springboard for our companies and provides benefits for the consumer in terms of better and safer goods and services that represent better value for money.” During the past decades Sweden has made it possible for the private sector to act in the areas of school and education, railways and electricity market just to name a few. The ambition has been that the promotion of competition would offer concrete advantages in the form of a greater choice of goods and services at competitive prices.

The political dividing lines have been clear between the Left Party and the Moderate Party. Some of the privatizations were made during the social democratic era and were built on agreements with the centre-right parties. The most active phase has been during the past few years though, during the centre-right government led by Fredrik Reinfeldt. All these privatizations are still experiments though, nobody knows if the reforms were for good or bad yet. At the moment, the hot topic is if it’s okay to gain profit in the sectors that are financed by taxes.

But what does Europe 2020 say about this? According to the flagship initiative Innovation Union, Europe’s future economic growth and jobs will increasingly have to come from innovation in products, services and business models. The goal is to revolutionize the way public and private sectors work together, notably through Innovation Partnerships between the European institutions, national and regional authorities and business. Instead of speaking about trade barriers, the initiate is talking about removing the obstacles to innovation.

At the moment, there are only two alternatives in the Swedish politics: to promote competition through private alternatives or to re-nationalize everything that has been privatized during the latest twenty years. The Green Party has taken a middle-position and is a proponent of free choice but in a more regulated way than the Moderate Party wants.  The idea of Innovation Partnerships in EU2020 has not reached the Government Offices or the opposition’s headquarters yet. This would mean thinking outside the box and to find other alternatives than a playground for risk capitalist corporations or a museum of public ownership.