The largest coalition government party declared that it will not consider implementing the proposal to decentralise political and administrative powers to the regions.

Below are excerpts from Blog Skaneland, hosted by Göran Hansson, UNPO Member Representative to Scania and UNPO Presidency Member:

A few weeks [January 2008] ago the party secretary of the largest coalition government party - Moderaterna - declared in the newspapers that his party will not consider implementing the proposal by Ansvarskommittén to decentralise political and administrative powers to the regions. “The (political) parties must locally speak their minds about it or arrange referendums. This issue must be pursued from beneath”, the party secretary said in the newspapers the other week.

How is it possible to “pursue an issue from beneath” if “beneath” is unaware of the alternatives? Regionalism, as an alternative to state centralism, was not mentioned at all during the last election. And not since then either. One party – Centerpartiet – spoke vaguely about federalism but failed convincingly to explain what they meant.

The politicians and the public sector representatives are narrow-mindedly talking about public service and administration and some of them show no hesitations to cut ancient culture regions into pieces and add them to others in order make their work easier.

Newspapers have difficulties reaching over the state propaganda horizon to see the wider European scheme of things. The newspapers in the region are having low mark discussions on weather of not the Scanians want to belong to Sweden or Denmark and are arranging simplistic yay-or-nay ballots on it.

If people are not aware of the alternatives how can they possibly be expected to make sound judgements at the ballot boxes? Particularly since many citizens are carrying a heavy load of blurring pro-state propaganda on their shoulders.

The party secretary’s statement appears to be an expression of lack of confidence on part of the central government. He and his political peers are obviously afraid that the whole state may collapse if the central reins are loosened just a little bit. It’s understandable that tight control of the citizens may have been necessary immediately after the invasion. But why is it still believed as necessary after 350 years?