Olof Palme, a legendary former Swedish party leader and prime minister, was a passionate agitator in Sweden and abroad. More than 40 years ago, he was standing on a wagon in Visby on the Swedish island Gotland and held a spontaneous speech in the park called Almedalen. This was a beginning for one of the biggest political festivals in the world.
Since then, Almedalen week has grown to a gigantic open-air lobby-fair with approximately 1,400 seminars and 11,000 visitors. From being a playground for the Swedish party leaders, it’s an arena for the political and other elites from different parts of the society. Visby is both an ideal place for the engaged citizens but also inaccessible for the ordinary man because of the small size and limited amount of hotel rooms. As well as you can meet all the ministers participating in panel discussions and seminars, you will even find enterprises, NGOs, universities, think-tanks and many more agitating and campaigning for their ideas. Not to forget the PR agencies who plan and organize most of the activities and events during the Almedalen week.
So if you’re interested in Swedish or Nordic politics, the Almedalen week is really the place to be. This year, not only all the Swedish ministers, but also the Finnish foreign minister/EU-minister Alexander Stubb attended Visby. Some of the seminars are already held in English, for example the Baltic Sea program and the Europe House i.e. the EU Commission and EU parliament in Sweden. Hopefully we’ll see even some EU high level representatives in Almedalen week next year. The national, regional and local policy representatives and interest organizations should meet their European counterparts and EU-level policy makers. In the times of turmoil and citizen alienation in EU, the officials and politicians should go native and Almedalen week would be an easy way to get started.
Northernwille’s Blog 
