Abstract
Sweden joined the EU in 1995, after a close-run referendum in which 52.3 per cent favoured accession. The Social Democrats (S), in government at the time of the 1994 referendum, aligned themselves with the four non-socialist opposition parties on the yes side, while the two remaining parties in parliament, the Greens (MP) and the Left (V), campaigned against Swedish membership. The referendum was the propitious crest of the yes wave. Within weeks, the opinion had swung back, and when Sweden formally acceded on January 1, 1995, the no camp was yet again in the majority in public opinion polls. In Sweden’s first election to the European Parliament (EP) in 1995, and again in 1999, the electorate demonstrated its discontent with accession by voting for anti-EU parties to a disproportional extent in comparison to historical voting patterns.
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© 2010 Malena Rosén Sundström and Anders Sannerstedt
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Sundström, M.R., Sannerstedt, A. (2010). Sweden. In: Lodge, J. (eds) The 2009 Elections to the European Parliament. EU Election Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230297272_29
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230297272_29
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