How Sweden Steered Clear of the Greece Fiasco

They are taking to the streets in Stockholm, but not with demands. Swedes, this month, ask for no more than a spare patch of grass or dockside granite to bask in the midsummer. The country has never really gone in for protest anyway, and right now there's nothing to protest about. The economy grew at an annual rate of 6.4 percent in the first quarter, after 5.7 percent last year, which was the strongest recovery in the European Union. And Sweden still has its krona.

Though it joined the union in 1995, Sweden never adopted the euro. It still enjoys the advantages of a tariff-free common market. It sends ministers, commissioners, and members of parliament to Brussels and Strasbourg. And right now, Swedes are looking south with relief. While Sweden enjoys monetary independence, Germany—another strong exporter with high-end manufacturing and solid growth—shoulders responsibility for saving Greece and preventing a wider financial collapse among the 16 other countries that use the euro. On June 13, Standard & Poor's gave Greece the world's lowest credit rating, while Greece's debt load reached 143% of gross domestic product, the highest in Europe. Sweden's krona has joined the Swiss franc as a favored currency for traders looking to profit from Germany's expansion while avoiding the European debt crisis. "If you are buying the Swedish krona," says Nick Parsons, head of markets strategy in London at National Australia Bank, "you are getting European growth without Greek politics."