The Blame Game

Tärande politik - DN.se: "Skulle Maud Olofsson ha haft större förtroende för en vd som nöjt sig med vattenkraft, och på sin höjd subventionerat lite fler vindsnurror? Med en sådan ledning för Vattenfall hade svenska folket varit många hundra miljarder fattigare. Vi hade fått betala ett högre elpris och saknat möjligheter att på allvar påverka Europas klimatpolitik."

Niklas Ekdal have the kindness of delivering facts but is in the process too negative regarding the government role. After all most acquisitions to Vattenfall AB were done prior to the Alliansen government. Economics minister Thomas Östros was reprimanded for example by KU for failing to properly steer Vattenfall AB in May 2005.

However, the above citation brings up the question of the cost of protection from the climate change problem. Ekdal points out that USA, China, Japan and Germany all are heavy users of fossil fuels and they are currently the top economical performers. I have noted that both Germany and Japan have recently begun a climate friendly approach that perhaps have as a by product a competition promoting element vis-à-vis their larger competitors.

Having concluded this it is easy to see why ownership of a energy company today becomes a liability for the government and why Jan Björklund and Fredrick Federley started talking about a sale. It is also evident from the the bouquet of blogs from the opposition preying on this issue. The state should not own companies is an other conclusion. Systembolaget and tobacco companies are other funny examples where the companies make negative commercials on their products. They produce something that is bad for you but that people like to use. The web site of Vattenfall AB gives the customer an opportunity of selecting electricity from for example only hydroelectric power for no extra charge.

In retrospect it may be possible to say that having diagnosed the problem earlier people from Alliansen should have prepared for a sale of Vattenfall AB earlier on. They could have guessed that they would be reprimanded in the same fashion as the Social Democrats and that they would be attacked during the end of the EU chairmanship for optimal deletary effect and just in time for the election process to begin. On the top of this, the potential flop of the Copenhagen meeting will then make the government look idling. The problem is of course that selling of the problem might give an air of irresponsibility that the opposition can capitalize on instead.