Regionalization has become a catchphrase in European countries during the last twenty years with the establishment of the European Union. An ideational development has occurred during time towards emphasing more politicially powerful regions with the idea of new regionalism. Sweden represents a deviant case study, where regions historically have been politically weak and where Sweden has been characterized as a strong unitary state. The aim of this paper is to analyze the political debate in the Swedish parliament concerning the implementation of a stronger regional level (storregioner) during 2007-2010 and to determine if the debate can be characterized as a case of depoliticalization. The theory of depoliticalization have been introduced by Richard Katz and Peter Mair to explain why political parties through external pressure from europeanisation and globalization tend to become more consensual with similar political agendas, leading to a diminished the lef-right scale.

Based on widespread public debate prior to Swedish EMU-referendum 2003, the main purpose of this thesis is to examine and analyze the standpoint of the Swedish parliamentary parties in the EMU-issue, from perspektive of the following questions;1) What is the official standpoint of the parliamentary parties in the EMU-issue?2) What claimed effects of a Swedish EMU-membership or non-membership have the parties presented?3) What rifts can be found within the parties, in relation to their official standpoint in the EMU-issue?The Sweidish parliamentary parties´ standpoint in the EMU-issue will be analyze from the point of view of a number of current theories. These theories are basically democrazy theories that all have transnationalization and Europeanization as a common ground.The conclusions are, among others, that the parliamentary parties` standpoints in the EMU-issue are based on ideological values about whether or not a Swedish EMU-membership is good for Sweden. The Liberal Party, the Christian Democrats, the Moderate Party and the Social Party have a positive view on EMU and a deeper European integration, and basically value the economic efficency of the EMU higher than democratic decision making and a national currency and monetary policy. As for the EMU-critical parties such as the Centre Party, the Green Party and the Left Party, their view in the EMU-issue can be regarded as more nationalistic, since they say no to an exapanded financial cooperation.