Reforms
As Sweden’s Minister for Employment, Littorin was in charge of USD 12bn of the government budget; the second largest part of public spending, covering areas such as the unemployment insurance system, active labor market programs and nine government agencies, including the Swedish Public Employment Service, the Work Environment Authority and the Labor Court.
Littorin was in charge of some of the major policy reforms introduced during the first government of Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt. These reforms included a major overhaul of the unemployment insurance system and a complete renovation of the Public Employment Service, introducing new instructions, a new board of directors, a new management team, a new structure and organization, new targets and incentives as well as opening up for private competition. He has the current record of having answered the highest number of questions in Parliament – 337 – during one single term. As a Minister, he gave over 4.000 interviews and made numerous public appearances domestically and internationally; among others for the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, International Monetary Fund and World Economic Forum.
During the Swedish Presidency of the European Union in the fall of 2009, Littorin was also President of the European Council of Ministers, in its Epsco formation (Ministers for Employment, Social Policy, Health and Consumer Affairs). As such, he oversaw European Union response to labor market effects caused by the financial crisis of 2008-09. Littorin was also member of the Swedish Government’s Globalization Council.
Read more about this topic: Sven Otto Littorin
Famous quotes containing the word reforms:
“Nothing divine dies. All good is eternally reproductive. The beauty of nature reforms itself in the mind, and not for barren contemplation, but for new creation.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“We shall one day learn to supersede politics by education. What we call our root-and-branch reforms of slavery, war, gambling, intemperance, is only medicating the symptoms. We must begin higher up, namely, in Education.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“One of the reforms to be carried out during the incoming administration is a change in our monetary and banking laws, so as to secure greater elasticity in the forms of currency available for trade and to prevent the limitations of law from operating to increase the embarrassment of a financial panic.”
—William Howard Taft (1857–1930)