Sweden – From Free Trade to Protectionism?

Sweden has been one of the leading voices for freer trade in the post-war era. Its support for the multilateral trading system has been strong. Today is different. Sweden is defensive in services sector that are protected by regulations, belong to the welfare-state domain, or have been perceived to be a non-tradable sector. A comparison between Sweden and the other EU-15 countries reveals that Sweden made fewest commitments to liberalization of trade in services in the Uruguay Round. A similar analysis of the offers made in the current round of trade liberalization shows that Sweden still has the bottom rank. If these sectors remain protected, the overall level of protection in the Swedish economy will increase and Swedish providers of key services, such as education and health care, will not be able to exploit their comparative advantages.