Quote:
Originally Posted by Lisnaholic
[B]
I finally did a little research about Sweden, and I see that like the UK you are hanging on to your own currency. That's a wise decision imo, but shows some ambivalence in Sweden towards the EU. Perhaps you're not so different from us after all! 
PS Do you have a pocketful of both euros and krona? How complicated is it to be using two currencies simultaneously? |
I don't know if it is neccesarily ambivalence towards the EU. The Swedish krona has always been a strong currency in itself. When it was time to vote for Sweden to join the Euro, the people voted no. I think we stayed in more of a "wait and see" position to see if we would like to join (although we are not technically exempt from joining, we don't meet the neccesary conditions to join it and I doubt we would ever meet them until there is a mass public approval for wanting to join). Then Greece and Italy started to plummet and I think that, as Sweden was one of the few countries that had a stable economy when the rest of Europe was in a recession, we just decided to stay with our krona.
I don't keep a pocket of euros and krona. Not many places take the Euro in Sweden (except mainly in the tourist areas...there you probably might find a few places that accept the Euro..but there is no requirement to accept the Euro here since we have our own currency). The only time I might end up in that kind of situation is when I go on the boats to Finland.
Now that most people are using the Swish app, we really are becoming a cashless society in Sweden. You just "swish" the money to your friend with your phone or to a store instead of giving them hard cash. The goal is that, in a few years, we will become completely cashless (which is a shame since they just printed some nice new banknotes), the first in the world.