Support for joining the euro at all time low in Sweden

Sweden is not going to join the failed eurozone anytime soon. Support for the euro has plummeted; now only 9% of the Swedes are in favour of joining.

Jonas Ljungberg, professor at the Department of Economic History at Lund University eplains why the euro is not working:

 "A 'one-size-fits-all' approach to interest rates doesn't work in the eurozone. The countries are simply too different," he tells The Local.

Ljungberg contends that the entire euro project is flawed as the eurozone doesn't correspond to an optimal currency area that is set up to reap the benefits of having a common currency.

"You end up with some countries following the European Central Bank (ECB) that have their interest rates too low, which can lead to the sort of real estate bubbles that hit Spain and Ireland," he explains.

"While in Germany interest rates are likely too high and this leads to deflation and falling wages."

He cites calculations carried out by Lars E. O. Svensson, a former Riksbank deputy governor, that tried to quantify the costs of euro membership to the Swedish economy.

"He found that Sweden stood to lose 50,000 jobs if the ECB rate was a half-point too high," says Ljungberg. "Sweden would not have benefited from joining the euro. Rather, I think Sweden has benefited by staying out."

He credits Swedish voters for "not being swayed by the arguments of the elite" who campaigned in favour of euro membership back in 2003.

"The elite were very dismissive of the concerns and arguments of the rest of the public," he says. "It's not enough to just say that only people who are uneducated are against joining."

The eurozone crisis hasn't help boost Swedes' confidence in the common European currency, perhaps exacerbating a latent "hesitation about handing too much power to Brussels of Frankfurt", says Ljungberg.

Up until 2009, support for the euro among Swedes hovered around 40 percent, with just over half of those polled saying they were against joining.

But ever since early 2010, support for the euro has plummeted. In May 2013, a poll by the SOM Institute in Gothenburg revealed only nine percent of Swedes were in favour of joining the euro.

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