Crown Princess Victoria and Daniel Westling were married on June 19, 2010, in a closely covered ceremony in Stockholm. Photo: Anders Wiklund/Scanpix

2010 was an eventful year for Sweden, to say the least. Leading the charge was the Royal household. Usually fairly immune to the probing of the press, 2010 was open season for the Swedish king and his offspring. After high-profile relationship splits for Prince Carl Philip and Princess Madeleine (the former fanning the flames in April after being spotted dating a former reality TV star), their sister Crown Princess Victoria managed to provide a silver lining for the beleaguered first family.

Royal ups and downs

June 19 saw the marriage of Crown Princess Victoria and Daniel Westling; a fairytale affair watched by nearly 3 million Swedes on television and countless more on the streets of Stockholm. A 500,000 strong cheer erupted from the streets of Stockholm when the princess said “I do.”

The honeymoon was halted with the November release of Den Motvillige Monarken (The Reluctant Monarch), a tell-all book revealing an alleged seedier side to Sweden’s much loved king. The book sold out in days, with Swedes keen to learn of supposed wild parties with aspiring models, a love affair with a Swedish singer and connections to Sweden’s underworld.

The king himself appeared at a press conference saying if anything happened it happened a long time ago and Swedes — again with the Royal family and its supporters at the helm — underwent much collective hand-wringing over its famously free press.

Freedom of leaks

Sweden’s staunch support of freedom of information attracted Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, who chose to employ the services of Swedish company PeRiQuito AB (PRQ) to host the controversial website. Self-styled freedom-of-speech advocate PRQ offers powerful “no questions asked” hosting in a former nuclear bunker below the streets of Stockholm. From there Assange and company unleashed hundreds of thousands of military, state and diplomatic secrets, threatening, if not to topple governments, to make them seriously re-think what and how they communicate.

Julian Assange has claimed that he came to Sweden as a refugee publisher, seeking the protection of the world's most extensive freedom of information laws. Photo: Darryl Yeoh/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/biatch0/4832131471/

As the year closed out, extraditions, legal battles and allegations of sexual assault threatened to muddy the Wikileaks waters even further. 

Business faux pas

Other waters were not so much muddied as oiled back in April, with a catastrophic oil spill at a BP oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico. At the helm of the British oil giant was Carl-Henric Svanberg, hailed as something of a hero in his native Sweden when appointed as chairman four months earlier. But when disaster struck Svanberg was nowhere to be seen.

A public relations gaffe made things all the worse when he did finally appear. In a series of comments made to the press, Svanberg complained that he thought his USD 3 million-a-year job would be a “smoother ride,” and referred to the disaster-hit residents of the Gulf Coast as the “little people.” Swedish business observers were left wishing that Svanberg had stayed on as CEO of Ericsson.

Carl-Henric Svanberg's honeymoon at BP was short-lived. Photo: Erik Mörner / http://www.flickr.com/photos/morner

It wasn’t all bad for Swedish business. 2010 saw the resurrection of the Swedish car industry, albeit under foreign ownership. After a much publicized and ultimately failed bid by a Swedish-Norwegian consortium, Saab was saved from certain bankruptcy by Dutch sports car company Spyker.

But tensions really mounted when, unwanted by owner Ford, Volvo’s future also seemed uncertain. Sweden without Volvo? What was the world coming to? Enter the Chinese, specifically Geely, the country’s largest privately owned carmaker. They snapped Volvo up for a cool USD 1.5 billion.

Cultural trilogies

In 2010 suddenly everybody seemed to realize how good, and commercially viable, Swedish film has become, and everybody wanted in. The US remake of Stieg Larsson’s phenomenally popular Millennium trilogy got under way, just as Noomi Rapace (the actress who appeared in the Swedish originals) saw her international stardom burst into orbit with several Hollywood offers on her plate.

The darkly creepy Stockholm vampire film Let The Right One In (Låt den rätte komma in) was reset and reshot in New Mexico as Let Me In and Warner Bros holds the rights to an American remake of Easy Money (Snabba Cash), based on the first book of Jens Lapidus’ successful Stockholm Noir trilogy. But Swedish film is vying for more than remakes, with huge successes both at the box offices and international film festivals.

Swedish film is hot; the question is, will the Hollywood remakes cool it down? Photo: Nordisk film

It was as if Swedish film took up the baton so long carried by Swedish music. But then again, Swedish music held its own, not least thanks to Robyn, with three album releases during the year — enough to earn her the title Swede of the Year 2010.

Challenges to Swedish tolerance

Regardless of ups and downs, and in the face of a continuing global downturn, the Swedish economy remained strong in 2010; perhaps one reason why contented voters re-elected Fredrik Reinfeldt as their prime minister in September.

But the election, one of the most closely fought in decades, was not without its dark side. In an unprecedented outcome the far right, anti-immigration Sweden Democrats party won 20 seats in the Swedish parliament, leaving Reinfeldt to rule without an overall majority. Many blamed the media’s pre-election blackout of the Sweden Democrats, saying that by not allowing them their voice they instead portrayed them as an underdog with a powerful, secret message to convey. The Swedish voters were perhaps just curious to hear them out.

The Moderate Party's record high election result was not enough to achieve an outright majority for Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt. Photo: Jessica Gow/Scanpix

Many fear that those who voted for the far right will see the dark events of Saturday, December 11 as justification. On this chilly winter day, one of Stockholm’s busiest shopping streets was the scene of Sweden’s first suicide bombing. A man alleged to be a Swede of Iraqi origin blew up a car and then killed himself with what appeared to be a misfiring bomb.

The reasons for this botched attack are still unclear. What is clear is that as Sweden enters 2011 it is doing so with uncertainty. Reinfeldt was quick to condemn the attack but equally swift to appeal for Swedes to keep their famous tolerance. Whatever the outcome of December 11, Sweden’s political landscape could re-shape radically in 2011.

Rob Hincks

Rob Hincks is an English freelance editor and writer based in Sweden. He can’t vote in the general elections, he missed the Royal Wedding and he doesn’t drive a Volvo. Still, he managed to have a pretty good year all the same.

The author alone is responsible for the opinions expressed in this article.