While many in Sweden had hoped emblematic carmaker Saab could be sold to a new owner, General Motors’ decision to close its money-losing brand was no surprise, Swedish editorialists agreed Saturday.
GM said in a statement Friday it would wind down Saab Automobile after failing to reach agreement with Dutch sports car maker Spyker on a sale of the division, just three weeks after another luxury car maker, Koenigsegg of Sweden, withdrew its bid for Saab.
“It is a tragic but nonetheless not totally unexpected announcement that Saab will now be wound down,” Goeteborgs Posten said, while noting that Saab had barely turned a profit in two decades under GM management.
Most commentators blamed GM for not doing enough to bring out Saab’s full potential and said the Swedish centre-right government — which repeatedly said the state would not step in as owner — could not be blamed for Saab’s fate.
“The government did what it could to facilitate a sale of Saab and kept the door open for loan guarantees,” conservative daily Svenska Dagbladet wrote.
“Now that Saab has come to the end of the road and it’s time to write the epilogue, much of the blame will be placed on General Motors’ lame ownership,” it said.
The Swedish government vowed Friday to help the 3,400 employees in Saab’s hometown of Trollhaettan and the thousands of other subcontractors who will soon find themselves out of work — up to 8,000 according to some reports.
But the mass-circulation Dagens Nyheter warned against quick fixes to help the town of 55,000 deal with the blow.
“The government should keep a cool head. Dispensing money to build up replacement industries usually ends in failure,” it said, recalling previous efforts after crises in the textile and shipbuilding industries.
GM’s decision was also a heavy blow to Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt’s government as it struggles in the polls ahead of Sweden’s general election in September, financial daily Dagens Industri noted.
The government has been lambasted recently over a reform of sickness benefits, leaving it trailing in the polls behind the opposition Social Democrats, seen as the founders and protectors of Swedes’ cherished welfare state.
