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This article describes the history of Sweden from 1989 until present day. After a period of rapid growth and unprecedented prosperity during the late 1980s, by 1990 the Swedish economy overheated, and after a controversial bill freezing salaries and banning strikes failed in the Riksdag, the social democrat government led by Prime Minister Ingvar Carlsson resigned in February 1990. At this time the respected Finance Minister Kjell-Olof Feldt left the government in protest over what he saw as irresponsible economic policies. Carlsson soon formed a new government, but by the time of the general election in September 1991 the economy was in free fall, and with rapidly rising unemployment, the social democrats received the smallest share of votes in sixty years (37.7%), resulting in the loss of office to the opposition, a centre-right coalition. Around the same time a convicted murderer and bank robber known as Lasermannen ("the Laser Man") shot eleven and killed one person in an attempted serial killing, which scared Swedish immigrants, whom he targeted. ==The Bildt Era== In response to the perceived failure of the Social Democrats to handle the economy and in protest over what was seen as outdated socialist policies (state-run monopolies in for example television, radio, telephone services & hospital care), newly formed reformist-populist party Ny demokrati made a successful surprise push for the Riksdag in the 1991 elections, enabling a new centre-right government to be formed. Under the leadership of Carl Bildt, the new government was determined to profile itself as anti-socialist and cosmopolitan, with the aim of initiating many reforms. Blaming some of the excesses of the Nordic model for the economic crisis, it wanted to initiate reforms and started dismantling of state-run monopolies, lowering of taxes, reshaping and internationalization of higher education, and laid the foundation for Sweden's subsequent entry into the European Union. However, the new government had inherited the most serious economic crisis seen in fifty years, which meant that instead of focusing on reforms, it had to spend almost its entire period in office (1991–1994) in crisis management mode. Consumer prices went up, house prices down and unemployment rocketed. In late 1992, under the pressure of a flurry of financial speculation that shook several European currencies at this time, the Riksbank briefly raised its target rate to 500% in an effort to defend the fixed exchange rate of the Swedish krona, but it had to be set free against other currencies, and immediately dropped about 15% against the US Dollar. During 1991 and 1992, the housing bubble that had built up during the 80s deflated, leaving many banks nearly insolvent, leading to the Swedish banking rescue, where the government had to guarantee all deposits in the nation's 114 banks and some nationalized at a cost of 64 billion SEK. The drain on the state treasury from 1992 and onward, was overwhelming and the current account deficit and national debt surged. To solve this, bipartisan agreements were soon reached with the Social Democrats on measures to combat the crisis, but with even these agreements, the hard conditions and deep economic recession were to last throughout the nineties. Because of this, the Bildt Cabinet is by many regarded as largely a failure, not only because the recession meant it was unable to do the reforms it set out to do, disenfranchising its core voters, but also because it wasn't seen as handling the crisis effectively, while making some obvious mistakes (such as the costly defence of the krona), sending swing voters into the arms of the opposition. While the lasting policy impact was limited, with notable exceptions such as the introduction of commercial TV/Radio and school vouchers, the most profound impact of the Bildt era was that most people came to associate a non-Social Democrat run country with recession and general misery (a picture also skilfully painted in the next three general elections by the Social Democrats), thereby effectively locking out the center-right parties from cabinet positions for the next twelve years. In recent years however, the Bildt government reputation has been restored to some degree, not least through the international praise given for the model way it in handled the bank bailouts. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「History of Sweden (1991–present)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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