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<title> Preserve the Swedish Monarchy </title>
	Today Sweden is a monarchy whose royal title is inherited. There are some arguments against keeping it this way, but none of which I see are strong enough. The strongest arguments against keeping the monarchy are that the royal family does not do anything important, nothing that contributes anything to the country. They simply stay on because of the tradition of having a Swedish monarch and live of the tax-payer's money. This is not the way I see it.
The main argument for dissolving the monarchy is that it costs a lot of money which is paid by the people through taxes. They argue that our money should be used to something more useful than to give money to the already rich. What they do not think about is that if we don't have a monarch as head of state, there will be another head of state who has to do the same rate of representation of the country which will cost the tax-payers as much money. The royal family does not use the appanage for their own private needs or luxuries, which is paid for by their private wealth, but rather to finance their representative work. The royal appanage has also decreased during the past few years. 
I think our King and Queen are doing a splendid job as representatives of Sweden. They are popular with most Swedes because they are down-to-earth and takes their task seriously instead of living the jet-set life they could do. If we should have a President as head of state the representative part of the presidency would be a disturbing factor in his political work. In that case it is better to have, as Sweden has, a Prime Minister in a monarchy who can concentrate only on politics and solely be a part of the actual governing of the country and let the King or Queen deal with the representative tasks. 
The royal couple are not totally unaware of what is happening throughout the nation. They often attend inaugurations and various events where they show their support for the different local areas. It happens that they visit different places of work where they talk to the people working there in an everyday way. The Queen is also very engaged in charity work, especially helping children who have difficulties of different kinds. 
In Sweden we have a great historical heritage of monarchs that dates back over a thousand years. Many were powerful and influential, some of which gained a high international status and successfully enlarged the Swedish kingdom. I see no reason for ending that long tradition of monarchs now. Karl XVI Gustav is a national symbol and will remain as one for the rest of his life and will then pass on his title to his daughter Victoria. It is a comfort to know what will happen to the royal family and that something will stay the same in Sweden while so many other things change. There will not be the same thing with a President, who will not be the same person for a longer period of time. It will always be an uncertianty about how he will manage his job as representative of Sweden. Some Presidents will probably perform this task in an admirable way, but some will manage less good. The ones who are not good at representative tasks will in a way make Sweden look bad outwards. Therefore it is better to rely on a professional in this area, that is our king, who has had this as a job all his adult life and obtained a lot of experience and is used to be in the centre of attention. The Swedish royal family has a lot of contacts abroad, mainly with other royal families, which can come in handy in times of crises and they might then be able to turn to other countries for assistance. 
One can argue that if the King and Queen are doing a bad job you cannot replace them by choosing another monarch, but today a monarch can only do things within a certain limit. He has advisers who will put an end to extreme behaviour. The monarch has no real power anylonger, so he cannot make decisions that will affect many others. 
I do not see any strong reasons for replacing our monarch who is doing a fine work as our head of state and makes a great national symbol for the rest of the world to see.
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