Yesterday, the Swedish parliament voted to approve the Lisbon Treaty (see press release here). After almost 9 hours of debate in the Riksdag, 243 MP voted in favour, 39 against, 13 abstentions (while 54 MP were not present). Apparently large parts of the debate in the parliament centered around issues that are of relevance from the perspective of Swedish national politics. In particular, a recurring issue was the concern about the Swedish model for collective wage agreements. Only recently the European Court of Justice ruled against Swedish unions who had blocked a construction site to protest lower wages being paid…