This opinion piece is an abridged translation of a version published in the Dagens Industri newspaper. You can find the original here.
Sweden’s competitiveness is built on global trade and a business sector that seeks talent from all over the world. Yet to look at our language policy, you'd think we were an isolated country on Europe’s fringes. We must dare to take decisions that better reflect how Sweden actually works today and what will be important to us in the future.
That is why English should become an official language in Sweden, alongside Swedish, and we need to signal this clearly internationally. Three simple arguments:
1. English is already part of our daily life
In Sweden, English is not a foreign language: It’s the language of an increasing number of workplaces, of our universities, of the tech sector, and in a large part of our culture. Someone who moves to Stockholm can live their entire life without speaking a word of Swedish. That makes us virtually unique in Europe.
In Switzerland, fewer people speak French than the number of Swedes who speak English, yet French is still an official language there. The difference is that the Swiss let reality guide policy. Sweden should do the same. An official language is not primarily about identity, it’s about function. If a language is widely used and strategically important, it should be treated accordingly.
2. We need to become the first choice for international talent
Companies today don’t compete primarily for capital but for people with the right skills. The most sought-after engineers, developers and researchers are free to work wherever they like. They choose the places where they can make a difference from day one.
In Europe, only two cities are seen as obvious choices for someone who mainly speaks English: London and Dublin. Stockholm is, in reality, just as easy for an English speaker to live in, but that perception hasn’t reached the rest of the world. We are losing talent completely unnecessarily.
It’s not because Swedish is difficult or because we are an unattractive country to work in. It’s because it's not clear to English-speaking talent that Sweden is a real option for them. Someone who needs to spend months or years learning the local language before building a career usually rules out that option right away. An official language would lower the barriers and could attract the skills we need most.
3. English is already the EU’s common language
Despite Brexit, English is essentially the EU’s working language. It is the language of research, trade, standards and diplomacy. Sweden can help give EU language policy a credible foundation. That we officially use English is entirely in line with how the EU operates. It would also give Sweden more weight on central issues where language sets the rules of the game.
Making it internationally well-known that English is one of Sweden’s official languages would give Swedes abroad an advantage. It would send a signal that we are naturally international and employable. In the long run, we might even be able to skip language tests when applying to study in countries like the USA or Australia.
We can become a country with the same talent base as if we had two billion inhabitants
The San Francisco Bay Area has barely eight million residents. Yet it sometimes feels as though far more live there, given the region’s enormous impact on the global tech scene. That’s because almost every ambitious technologist in the world has at some point considered moving there. It’s a magnet for the most talented individuals from a global population of billions: everyone who speaks English.
That’s how you build truly strong knowledge clusters. You don’t recruit from nearby municipalities, you recruit from the entire planet. Only the best succeed, but many more consider the place an option. That effect is incredibly powerful.
Stockholm is already moving in the right direction. Spotify, Skype, Klarna and now Lovable have made our city well-known in the tech world. But in practice, we still recruit mainly from a talent pool of about 20 to 50 million people: Sweden, plus a handful of other countries that already know us or are willing to take the language leap.
If we want Stockholm to play in the same league as the global clusters, we must open ourselves to the group that forms the global elite in tech and research. For them, language is a practical question. The answer must be just as practical: English works here fully from day one.
Swedish is and will remain our main language. There’s no doubt about that. But in a knowledge-driven society, language policy is also part of industrial policy. It shapes who chooses to contribute here and who chooses to contribute somewhere else. English is already our second language. Now it’s time to make that clear in legislation and in how we talk about Sweden internationally.
The world won’t come to us on its own. But we can invite it with three words: Welcome to Sweden.
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