# Bo Könberg

# Bo Könberg

Bo Göran Könberg was born on 14 October 1945 in Stockholm, the son of Nils Könberg and Ingrid, née Hansson. He is a Swedish politician of the Liberal People's Party (Folkpartiet liberalerna). At its congress in November 2015 the party left that name and became the Liberals. He took the studentexamen in 1964 and in 1970 married Anita Bylund, born in 1947.

From 1972 he was first secretary at Stockholm County Council, and from 1974 investigative secretary at Näringslivets byggnadsdelegation. In 1976 he became information secretary at the Ministry of Housing, and in 1977 an expert in the same ministry. Between 1978 and 1991 he was a county council commissioner in Stockholm County: health-care commissioner in 1978–1979 and again in 1986–1988, social commissioner in 1980–1982, Liberal group leader from 1982 to 1991, and opposition commissioner from 1988 to 1991.

From 4 October 1991 to 7 October 1994 he was a minister in the Ministry of Health and Social Affairs in [Carl Bildt](/people/carl-bildt)'s cabinet, with responsibility for health care and social insurance. He chaired the Pension Working Group (Pensionsarbetsgruppen, S 1991:14) in that ministry. The group ended its work in 1994 after the report *Reformerat pensionssystem* (SOU 1994:20). On 28 April 1994 the government, in a bill signed by Bildt and Könberg, asked the Riksdag to approve guidelines for a reformed public old-age pension, based on that report and an agreement inside the working group between the four governing parties and the [Social Democrats](/organizations/social-democrats). The bill set out guidelines rather than statutory text, and the chamber followed the Social Insurance Committee's proposal of partial approval.

Könberg sat in the Riksdag as a substitute member from 10 January to 9 October 1995 and as an ordinary member from 10 October 1995 to 31 December 2005. In 1998 he became the Liberal group's leader in parliament. From 20 January to 4 October 1998 he chaired the Committee on the Constitution, and from 1998 to 2002 he was first vice chair of the Social Insurance Committee. He was county governor and head of the County Administrative Board of Södermanland from 1 January 2006, and the government later extended the appointment to 30 September 2012. From 1 January 2010 he was also chair of the board of the new Swedish Pensions Agency.

## Early life and education

### Family background

Bo Könberg was born in Stockholm, Sweden, on 14 October 1945, the son of Nils Könberg and Ingrid, née Hansson. The Swedish biographical handbook *Vem är det* styles him Bo G. Könberg and gives the same parentage and birth date in its 1981, 1985, 1993 and 2001 editions. The Riksdag member register likewise gives 1945 as his year of birth. Those handbook entries do not name a birth parish or the parents' occupations.

He married in 1970. His wife, Anita Bylund, was born in 1947, the daughter of Åke Bylund and Karin, née Pettersson. News reports at his appointment as county governor in 2005 described the couple as having four daughters. Anita was from Mariefred. The couple had kept summer homes in Södermanland for decades and customarily spent the summers there.

### Schooling and first appointments

Könberg took the *studentexamen* in 1964, then the leaving examination of the Swedish gymnasium. The state higher general secondary schools (*läroverk*) became municipal gymnasiums on 1 July 1966, and the old *studentexamen*, including its oral examination before external censors, was abolished in 1969 under a 1967 ordinance. The biographical entries name no school and list no university degree; the next date they give is 1972.

In that year he was appointed a first secretary (*förste sekreterare*) at Stockholm County Council (Stockholms läns landsting). The council had just been reconstituted. On 1 January 1971 the so-called *storlandsting* took effect: Stockholm city, which had itself carried out county responsibilities such as health care for its residents, was brought into the county council, previously responsible only for the other municipalities in the county. Full-time posts more than quadrupled, from 7,000 to 32,000, and a third of the city's employees changed employer. A joint committee of the city and the county council, appointed in 1963, produced a proposal that both assemblies adopted in 1966 and that the government approved in 1969.

In 1974 he became an investigative secretary (*utredningssekreterare*) at Näringslivets byggnadsdelegation, a business organization concerned with housing and construction policy. Its director in the mid-1980s, Ulf Brunfelter, published arguments for reducing subsidies and regulation in the housing sector. In 1976 Könberg was an information secretary in a government ministry, and in 1977 an expert (*sakkunnig*) there. The 1981 edition of *Vem är det* places those years in the Ministry of the Budget (Budgetdepartementet); from the 1985 edition onward the same lines place them in the Ministry of Housing (Bostadsdepartementet). In 1978 he became health-care commissioner (*sjukvårdslandstingsråd*) on Stockholm County Council, leaving those staff posts for elected office; the same entry marks his party as Folkpartiet (fp), the [Liberal People's Party](/organizations/liberals).

## Stockholm County politics

### County council commissioner

Könberg came into Stockholm County politics from the council's own staff. After his studentexamen in 1964 he was first secretary of Stockholm County Council (Stockholms läns landsting) from 1972, investigation secretary of Näringslivets byggnadsdelegation in 1974, and information secretary in the Ministry of Housing in 1976, an expert (sakkunnig) there from 1977. In 1978 he became a full-time health-care commissioner (sjukvårdslandstingsråd) for the Liberals (Folkpartiet). The biographical handbooks date that term to 1978–1979 and the next, as social-services commissioner (sociallandstingsråd), to 1980–1982.

From 1982 to 1991 he led the Liberal group. He was health-care commissioner again in 1986–1988 and an opposition commissioner (landstingsråd i opposition) in 1988–1991. From 1971 the council worked from Landstingshuset on Kungsholmen in Stockholm, the rebuilt former garrison hospital.

### Health, social services and regional projects

A personal family doctor (husläkare) was already a Liberal county demand. Könberg has written that a motion before the 1976 election was voted down; that the council then made Gunnar Hjerne, its Liberal health commissioner, a one-person inquiry into continuity of care; and that in the spring of 1979, during Könberg's first health term and on the day the Riksdag rejected a national family-doctor bill, the Liberal group, with Centre and Moderate support, carried three local trials from Hjerne's models. The best known was at Matteus health centre by Odenplan, led by Göran Sjönell. In that account the trials continued through the early 1980s and were judged clearly successful.

He held the health portfolio again in 1986–1988. An attempt to widen the trials then failed inside the non-socialist coalition, he has written; [the Liberals](/organizations/the-liberals), after informing their partners, agreed an extension with the Social Democratic opposition. The result was Kvartersakuten at Odenplan, with a much higher density of doctors, later evaluated, in his account, with encouraging results. Between the health terms the recorded office was social services, in 1980–1982. The handbooks list no separate regional-development post; from 1988 he was an opposition commissioner.

### Parliamentary inquiries

National inquiries ran alongside the county offices. On 20 January 1977 the government authorised a committee on stronger protection of civil rights in the Instrument of Government (regeringsformen), and on 27 January appointed Könberg, then a housing-ministry information secretary, under Gunnar Heckscher. The April 1978 report, SOU 1978:34, *Förstärkt skydd för fri- och rättigheter*, proposed a special procedure for laws limiting rights, rules on constitutional amendment, judicial review, scrutiny by the Council on Legislation, and stronger rules on expropriation, retroactive tax law and Swedish citizenship. Könberg stood behind the proposals. Kenneth Kvist of the Left Party Communists reserved his position.

On 31 August 1978 the housing minister Birgit Friggebo was authorised to name a special investigator of maintenance in rental and tenant-owner housing, and appointed Könberg, by then a county commissioner. The directives asked whether maintenance charges should be compulsory, on the principle that residents should pay for wear. An interim report of 15 June 1981, SOU 1981:47, covered tenant influence over painting and wallpapering. The final report, SOU 1982:65, *Återinvestera i bostäder* (17 January 1983), found maintenance neglected and fund financing impracticable, and instead sketched loan financing of periodic maintenance, with no short-term proposals.

On 11 May 1988 the government set up the Elderly Delegation (Äldredelegationen) under Bengt Lindqvist to study a more unified responsibility for elderly care. Könberg was the Liberal member. The report Ds 1989:27, of 22 May 1989, proposed a statutory municipal duty to provide special housing, transfer of local nursing homes, and municipal medical measures in the home, with physicians remaining a county responsibility. The non-socialist members reserved themselves on parts of the text, and the Liberal representative filed a special statement. A bill of 4 October 1990 largely followed the report; the shift of long-term care took effect on 1 January 1992.

From 1988 to 1990 he also sat on the Pension Commission (Pensionsberedningen), appointed in November 1984 under Sture Korpi. Its report SOU 1990:76, *Allmän pension* (November 1990), considered financing, rules for earning supplementary-pension (ATP) rights, indexation, the income ceiling, and a possible merger of the folkpension and ATP. With Gösta Andersson and [Ingegerd Troedsson](/people/ingegerd-troedsson) he opposed further build-up of the AP funds before 2005 and a wider right for the funds to buy Swedish shares. With Troedsson he treated ATP as pay-as-you-go, dependent on growth, and argued for a larger funded element; separately, he wanted a closer link between contributions and benefits, including full fees above the ceiling of 7.5 base amounts, where no benefit was earned.

## Minister for health care and social insurance

### Appointment in the Bildt cabinet

On 4 October 1991, after the [1991 Swedish general election](/facts/1991-swedish-general-election), Prime Minister Carl Bildt told the Riksdag that the [Moderate Party](/organizations/moderate-party), the Liberal People's Party (Folkpartiet liberalerna), the Centre Party and the [Christian Democrats](/organizations/christian-democrats) had formed a government. He named Bengt Westerberg, of the same party, head of the Ministry of Health and Social Affairs, and listed Bo Könberg among the ministers of state who were not department heads. The Riksdag's register records the post from 4 October 1991 to 7 October 1994, for the life of the Bildt cabinet. The announcement gave him no separate title. Members addressed him as minister for health care (*sjukvårdsminister*); health-care bills carried his signature, and he presented social-insurance bills with Westerberg.

The government declaration said that care was too slow and bureaucratic, and that the queues were too long. It promised every resident a freely chosen family doctor (*husläkare*), gradual free establishment for doctors, and a review of how care was financed. It also invited the Riksdag parties to talks on pensions, the reform treated in the next section.

### Family-doctor reform

Könberg presented Proposition 1992/93:160 on 25 February 1993. It proposed a national family-doctor system from 1 January 1994, fully in place by the end of 1995, so that everyone living in Sweden could choose a doctor in outpatient care. The doctor was to be a specialist in general practice, with exemptions from the government or the National Board of Health and Welfare, responsible for consulting hours, on-call cover, home visits and prevention. Pay was mainly an age-adjusted sum per listed patient plus visit fees, on the same basis for public and private doctors. A list was normally 1,000 to 3,000 people, and a qualified doctor who accepted the duties could establish a practice. The Riksdag adopted the scheme in the spring of 1993. The Family Doctor Act (lagen 1993:588 om husläkare) was issued on 3 June 1993 and came into force on 1 January 1994.

County councils, which ran most care, were already moving: by the turn of 1992/93, 17 had decided on a family-doctor or similar arrangement. Most consultees wanted better continuity. The Swedish Medical Association and the organizations of district doctors and of general medicine wanted the reform carried through. The Federation of County Councils (Landstingsförbundet) favoured the idea but wanted time to shift resources into primary care and stressed local differences. Most consultees doubted or rejected free establishment, because a national right would limit county councils' control of resources. The National Board, LO, TCO, the health-care union SHSTF and the pensioners' organization PRO preferred to refer the question to the inquiry already under way on organization and financing.

On 20 April 1994 the chamber voted 152–151 to call on the government to repeal the act. The majority was the [Swedish Social Democratic Party](/organizations/swedish-social-democratic-party), the Left Party and 20 members of [New Democracy](/organizations/new-democracy), which had backed the act in 1993; the governing parties and two New Democracy members voted to keep it. [Bert Karlsson](/people/bert-karlsson) said his party now thought that support had been a mistake, while [Ian Wachtmeister](/people/ian-wachtmeister) urged it not to break what he called its political word. The committee held that the system broke up primary care, reduced choice and imposed central rules that county councils should be free of, and that the point was a patient's continuous doctor, not a doctor's right to establish. The act was also called too centred on physicians, including over district nurses and geographical responsibility.

The Bildt government left office without proposing a repeal. On 30 March 1995 [Ingvar Carlsson](/people/ingvar-carlsson)'s cabinet, with Ingela Thalén at the ministry, did so, calling the statute unnecessarily detailed and not mainly a cost problem, and leaving listing and pay to each county council. The act ceased on 1 January 1996. Residents kept a right, in the Health and Medical Services Act, to choose a fixed primary-care doctor who was a specialist in general medicine. By mid-1994 private family doctors numbered 668, about 16 percent nationally and about 40 percent in Västmanland, and some counties had none.

### Care guarantee and other measures

An April 1991 agreement between the state and Landstingsförbundet, made before Könberg took office, brought in a national care guarantee (*vårdgaranti*) in 1992 for queued treatments such as coronary care, joint replacement, cataract surgery and hearing aids. On the National Board's 1991 indications, the procedure was to be offered within three months, elsewhere if the home clinic could not provide it. The state paid 500 million kronor in 1992, 60 kronor per inhabitant. In November 1992 the parties extended the guarantee through 1993 without a further grant, and their follow-up called the experience good. The National Board has since counted twelve procedures in the 1992 scheme. In 1996 it was extended to primary-care contact and a first specialist visit on referral; in 1997 the original twelve were dropped, and the rest stood until a new agreement in 2005.

On social insurance, Westerberg and Könberg presented Proposition 1992/93:31 on 10 November 1992. From 1 April 1993 each spell of illness began with an unpaid waiting day (*karensdag*), capped at ten in twelve months, and a new spell within five days counted as a continuation. Benefit was 65 percent of qualifying income for the next two days, 80 percent through day 365 and 70 percent thereafter. Rehabilitation benefit fell by five points, to 95 percent, and quarter and three-quarter disability pensions were added. The bill cited the public finances and sharper incentives, and sought the same rules for employees and the self-employed.

## The 1990s pension reform

### From the ATP system to the working group

Sweden's public old-age pension in the early 1990s still combined a flat folkpension with the earnings-related allmän tilläggspension (ATP), both in force from 1960. A full folkpension required 40 years' residence between 16 and 65, or 30 years with ATP points, and was a flat sum rather than a share of earnings. ATP, on income between one and 7.5 base amounts, paid 60 percent of the average of the 15 best years, with 30 years required for a full pension. Both were price-indexed through [the base](/organizations/the-base) amount, so earned rights followed inflation rather than earnings growth.

In December 1990 the Pensionsberedningen, in *Allmän pension* (SOU 1990:76), described the cost and financing pressures ahead and listed alternatives without choosing among them. On 28 November 1991 the Bildt cabinet, on a submission by Bo Könberg, authorized a nine-member working group to propose a new public system. Its directive, tied to that report and to proposition 1991/92:38, called for decisions that were long-term and stable, and for changes that would raise saving, encourage work and tighten the link between contributions and benefits. The later reform bill projected that, without a reform, the AP funds would run out between 2015 and 2020 and that the state budget would then cover the deficit. Edward Palmer, who served the group as an expert, afterwards wrote that ATP had been designed for about 4 percent real growth and shorter lives, that slower wage growth implied contribution rates future workers were unlikely to accept, and that the early-1990s recession cut the contribution base by about a tenth. The 15-best-years rule, he argued, favoured short high-peaked careers over long ones.

Pensionsarbetsgruppen (S 1991:14) was chaired by Könberg, of the Liberal People's Party (Folkpartiet), and had one member from each party in the Riksdag: Margit Gennser (Moderate Party); Anna Hedborg and Ingela Thalén (Swedish Social Democratic Party); Åke Pettersson ([Centre Party](/organizations/centre-party)); Barbro Westerholm (Folkpartiet); Pontus Wiklund (Christian Democrats); for the Left Party, Per Lennart Börjesson until 31 January 1993 and Ulla Hoffmann from 1 February 1993; and Leif Bergdahl (New Democracy). Palmer, then a head of division at the National Social Insurance Board, was an expert from 23 April 1992. In 1992 the group published Ds 1992:89, *Ett reformerat pensionssystem – bakgrund, principer och skiss*, a sketch of principles, not a finished statute.

### The five-party agreement and the new design

On 24 January 1994 the four governing parties and the Social Democrats issued a communiqué on a joint scheme. SOU 1994:20 *Reformerat pensionssystem*, signed in February 1994, was unanimous apart from reservations by Bergdahl and Hoffmann. Proposition 1993/94:250 turned that scheme into guidelines for a public, compulsory, contribution-defined pension on lifetime income. A contribution of 18.5 percent of pensionable income, up to a ceiling, would be recorded for each person. Of it, 16.5 percentage points would pay current pensions from a pay-as-you-go account, converted at retirement by a divisor reflecting remaining life expectancy, with pensions indexed to hold their real value at a stated growth norm and to move when growth differed. Two percentage points would go to an individual premium reserve, invested with a chosen manager or, by default, the state. The working group's benchmark, restated in the bill, was that 40 years of average earnings growth and retirement at 65 should yield about 55 to 60 percent of final pay.

A separate guarantee pension would fill the earnings-related benefit up to a floor — in the bill, 2.1 base amounts a year for a single pensioner and 1.87 for a married pensioner at the bottom. Credits were also proposed for some social-insurance benefits, years with small children, studies and compulsory service. The earnings-related pension could be drawn in quarters from 61, with an actuarial adjustment. People born before 1935 would keep the old earnings-related rules; those born from 1935 through 1953 would move across in twentieths; those born in 1954 or later would be wholly in the new rules. In a 2000 [World Bank](/organizations/world-bank) paper Palmer treated the pay-as-you-go account as a notional defined-contribution pension, with the guarantee kept outside that formula as tax-financed redistribution.

Bergdahl's reservation said the inquiry had been closed in negotiations that excluded two of the parties, and that what remained was still, as he put it, about 88 percent pay-as-you-go; New Democracy wanted a rapid shift to a fully funded scheme with individual placement. Hoffmann objected to the procedure and to the lack of consequence studies. She wrote that late in 1993 the governing parties and the Social Democrats had taken the real talks into a separate group, that the timetable was being forced before the 1994 election, and that complaints from women about what they called a 49-year rule had been brushed aside as special interests.

### Decision, implementation and Könberg's continuing role

Proposition 1993/94:250, *Reformering av det allmänna pensionssystemet*, went to the Riksdag on 28 April 1994 over the signatures of Prime Minister Carl Bildt and Könberg. It set guidelines rather than statute. The coalition and Social Democratic members had accepted revisions after consultation, which also closed the working group's assignment, and the bill said an implementation group of those parties would prepare the rest and maintain the agreement (*vårda överenskommelsen*), without unilateral changes to its basic elements. On 8 June 1994, following the social-insurance committee's report 1993/94:SfU24, the chamber approved the guidelines by 279 votes to 19, with 15 abstentions. The majority was Social Democratic, Moderate, Liberal, Centre and Christian Democratic; 18 New Democrats and one Social Democrat voted for a reservation that would have rejected the bill, and the abstentions included 13 [Left Party](/organizations/left-party) members. The decision was riksdagsskrivelse 1993/94:439.

The implementation group (S 1994:G) was appointed on 23 June 1994 inside the Ministry of Health and Social Affairs. Könberg sat on it from 7 October 1994. Maj-Inger Klingvall chaired it until September 1999, and Ingela Thalén from 1 November 1999; Palmer remained an expert. Its memoranda included Ds 1995:41, a draft act on the income-related pension, Ds 1997:66 on the guarantee pension, and Ds 1997:67 on the financial rules. On 2 April 1998 the government of [Göran Persson](/people/goran-persson), through Klingvall, submitted propositions 1997/98:151, on the income-related pension, and 1997/98:152, on the guarantee pension, as legislation on the 1994 guidelines. The right was still 18.5 percent, but 16 percent now went to the pay-as-you-go income pension and 2.5 percent to a funded premium pension, with fund choice or a state default under a new Seventh AP Fund board and a Premium Pension Authority. The annuity used life expectancy and a 1.6 percent growth norm. Cohorts were redrawn: those born in 1954 or later were wholly in the new income-related rules, and those born from 1938 through 1953 received a rising number of twentieths from them and the rest from ATP; the guarantee covered people born in 1938 or later. Accrual was to begin on 1 January 1999 and payment in January 2001, with the guarantee pension taking effect on 1 January 2001 and first paid in January 2003. The Riksdag followed the committee's report 1997/98:SfU13 on 8 June 1998. In 1999 it issued Ds 1999:43, on automatic balancing: rules for departing from income indexation in the pay-as-you-go tier, a point the 1998 committee had left for later work.

## Riksdag member and Liberal leadership

### Terms and committee posts

Bo Könberg sat in the Riksdag for Folkpartiet liberalerna — the Liberal People's Party, later renamed the Liberals — from 1995 until the end of 2005. After the election of 18 September 1994 the certificate of election listed him as the party's first substitute in the Stockholm Municipality constituency, behind Birgit Friggebo, Hadar Cars and Barbro Westerholm. He replaced Cars from 10 January to 8 October 1995, while Cars was on leave in the [European Parliament](/organizations/european-parliament), and was an ordinary member from 9 October 1995 to 31 December 2005. The opening lists after the 1998 and 2002 elections again recorded him as an ordinary member for Stockholm Municipality.

The committee record is concentrated on social insurance and the constitution. He was a substitute on the Committee on Social Insurance from 16 January 1995 to 4 October 1998, its first vice-chair from 13 October 1998 to 30 September 2002, and an ordinary member from 8 October 2002 until he left. On the Committee on the Constitution he was a member from 16 September 1997, chair from 20 January to 4 October 1998, a member again until 19 January 1999, and a substitute from 30 September 1999 to 30 September 2002. He sat on the EU Committee from 12 January 1995 to 30 November 1997 and was a substitute there from October 2002 to December 2005, and he was a Finance Committee substitute from October 1998 through December 2005, with a short spell in 2001–02 as a substitute on the Committee on [Foreign Affairs](/organizations/foreign-affairs).

### Group leader

*Vem är det* for 2001 lists him as a Riksdag member and as the party's parliamentary group leader from 1998. Anne Wibble's own entry in *Fakta om folkvalda* records her as group leader for the 1997/98 session; she left the Riksdag on 1 December 1997. Könberg held the group leadership from 1998, while Lars Leijonborg — party chairman from 1997 and an MP for Stockholm County — remained the national leader. From the 2002 election until December 2005 Könberg also sat on the Riksdag Board and the War Delegation, and was a substitute on the nominating committee and the Advisory Council on Foreign Affairs.

On 13 October 2005 the government named him county governor (*landshövding*) of Södermanland County from the turn of the year, for five years, in succession to [Bo Holmberg](/people/bo-holmberg); the TT dispatch called him the party's group leader since 1998. On 7 December TT reported that 34-year-old Anna Grönlund-Krantz, vice-chair of the tax committee and a member of the party board, would succeed him in the group. Closing the autumn session on 17 December, the Speaker of the Riksdag thanked him for eleven years in the chamber and especially for his work as group leader, and noted that he was leaving for the county governorship. His mandate ended on 31 December 2005.

### Party programme and policy work

The programme in force for most of these years was *Frihet att växa*, adopted at the congress in Gothenburg in 1997 and revised in 1999 and 2001. The 1997 text takes the individual as liberalism's starting point and her freedom and life chances as the aim. It sets out three pillars: spiritual freedom (democracy, political liberty and the rule of law); material freedom (a market economy based on private ownership and freedom of contract); and solidarity, described as concern for others, rooted in family and voluntary communities and backed by public welfare for those with few chances. It treats liberalism as an open tradition, not a closed doctrine, and concentrations of power — in the state, firms or organizations — as a threat to individual rights.

Könberg was the lead signatory on the party's social-insurance motions and on several migration motions. In October 2005 one motion argued that a decade of strain, first on unemployment insurance and then on sickness insurance, had crowded out other spending because both were financed directly from the treasury. It proposed three general schemes — old-age pension, sickness insurance including early-retirement benefits, and unemployment insurance — on the income-loss principle and financially separate from the budget, and cited the broad pension settlement as the model for a cross-party review. A companion motion said replacement rates should stay near 80 per cent, but that the government's aim of halving sickness absence by 2008 looked set to fail, and contrasted what it called a retreat from the work line by the Swedish Social Democratic Party with the Liberals' charge that the schemes were being misused.

On the government's 2005 migration and asylum communication, his group's motion asked for closer follow-up of rejected asylum cases, return agreements without a promised quid pro quo, a review of whether carrier sanctions fitted the Geneva Convention, and an explanation of why Sweden was drawing more complaints before the UN Committee against Torture and the [European Court of Human Rights](/organizations/justice-ecthr). In December, on a bill to split child benefit when a child lives alternately with both parents, the motion he introduced said that letting one parent force a split risked more disputes and less flexibility in the child's living arrangements. It asked instead for a mandatory notice of which parent should receive the benefit, and for maintenance to be settable even in alternating residence. Of that motion's five points, the Riksdag approved two and rejected three.

## Governor of Södermanland

### Appointment and the office

On 13 October 2005 the government of Sweden appointed Bo Könberg, since 1998 group leader of the Liberal People's Party in the Riksdag, county governor (*landshövding*) of Södermanland County from the turn of the year, on a five-year term. He took office on 1 January 2006, succeeding Bo Holmberg, who had left in the summer of 2005, after nine years, to become a director-general in the Government Offices. Until then the duties were carried by Göran Ekström, described at the time both as acting county director and as acting governor. The County Administrative Board lists Könberg for 2006–2012, Holmberg for 1996–2005 and Liselott Hagberg for 2012–2019.

The governor heads the board and is the government's representative in the county, coordinating state activity, following local conditions, reporting the county's needs, and working for its development. On 25 November 2010 the government extended Könberg's appointment to 30 September 2012. Hagberg, a Riksdag member living in Nyköping, was named his successor in June 2012. From 1 January 2010 he was also chair of the board of the new Swedish Pensions Agency, alongside the governorship.

### Term in Nyköping

Könberg was born in Stockholm in 1945. His wife, Anita, is from Mariefred, and the couple had kept summer homes in the county for decades; the family was to move into the governor's residence in Nyköping. He said he looked forward to the post, especially cooperation in the Mälardalen region.

The residence at Stora torget, built in 1806 and a state listed building since 1935, is owned by the National Property Board and used by the County Administrative Board as offices and for official entertainment; it has also been the governor's home. A governor has been based in the county since 1635.

When the extension was announced, Könberg said he wanted to continue with a larger region, the Ostlänken railway and integration. In August 2009 he made representations to Minoo Akhtarzand, director-general of Banverket, about Ostlänken, and the next month he said a government inquiry on high-speed trains augured well for the line. In April 2012 *Södermanlands Nyheter* reported his view that plans by the Swedish Transport Administration to build Ostlänken were welcome, but that the work should start earlier and as one project rather than two stages. In March 2011 he said he was uneasy at opposition to what he called "our excellent idea" of a Stockholm–Mälardalen region. He visited every municipality at least once a year; the October 2011 visit to Eskilstuna focused on integration and unemployment.

### Inquiry on health-care fees

While governor, Könberg led a national review of fees and high-cost protection. On 22 June 2011 the government adopted committee directive 2011:61, ordering a review of fees for health care, medicines, and care of older people and people with disabilities. The aim was a structure that would support quality and efficiency, protect those most in need, steer patients to the right level of care at the right time, encourage prevention, and help finance care over the long term, without people forgoing care because of cost. The report was due by 15 January 2012. Könberg was appointed investigator from 10 August 2011; the inquiry was named Vårdavgiftsutredningen (S 2011:08).

With little time, he limited the main proposals to the ceilings for outpatient visits and medicines. The report, SOU 2012:2, *Framtidens högkostnadsskydd i vården*, was submitted in Stockholm in January 2012. He saw a strong case for one ceiling covering medicines, outpatient care and patient transport, so that support would not depend on how costs were split, but judged a merger impractical in the short run and proposed keeping the separate ceilings. To preserve their real value he proposed annual indexation to the price base amount: 2.5 percent of that amount for outpatient care, rounded down to the nearest 50 kronor (1,100 kronor under the ceiling already set for 2012), and 5 percent for medicines (2,200 kronor in 2012), with the steps of the medicines subsidy ladder indexed as well. County councils could still set a lower outpatient ceiling. He also proposed indexing the maximum daily inpatient charge, after a one-off rise from the 80 kronor fixed in 1998 to about 100 kronor, and noted that routine data were too thin to show how fees affected the use of care. The changes were proposed to take effect on 1 January 2013.

## Later public roles

### The Pensions Agency

On 1 January 2010 Sweden placed administration of the public old-age pension in a new central agency, Pensionsmyndigheten. Under a government bill of 28 May 2009 it took over part of the work of Försäkringskassan, the Social Insurance Agency, and the whole of the Premium Pension Authority (Premiepensionsmyndigheten), which was closed at the same time. Its remit covered income, supplementary, premium and guarantee pension, together with related benefits such as survivor's pension, housing supplement and maintenance support for the elderly.

On 29 April 2008 the government had appointed a special investigator to prepare and carry out the change (dir. 2008:52), conditional on parliamentary approval. The task was to settle the boundary with Försäkringskassan and local service to the public, and then to make a start on 1 January 2010 possible. Bo Könberg, then governor of Södermanland County, held the inquiry from 2 May 2008 to 13 April 2009; Katrin Westling Palm succeeded him until it closed on 31 December 2009.

On 12 February 2009 the government named Westling Palm director-general and Könberg chair of the board. He took up the chair on 1 January 2010 and held it through 31 December 2015, alongside the governorship, which ran until 30 September 2012. The agency was board-led: the board was the highest management and collectively responsible, while the director-general ran day-to-day work. In 2010 the board, with Könberg as chair, met twelve times and set up an audit committee. A government decision reported on 15 December 2015 appointed Peter Norman, a former minister for financial markets, as his successor. Norman chaired the board only from 1 January to 9 February 2016, leaving after the government found the post incompatible with a pending seat on Swedbank's board.

### Nordic health cooperation

In 2013 the secretary-general of the [Nordic Council](/organizations/nordic-council) of Ministers and the Nordic ministers for health and social affairs asked Könberg for an independent report on strengthening health cooperation over five to ten years, within the programme Sustainable Nordic Welfare (2013–2015). The model was [Thorvald Stoltenberg](/people/thorvald-stoltenberg)'s 2009 report on Nordic foreign and security cooperation. Over about a year Könberg and senior adviser Astrid Utterström visited the five Nordic countries, the Faroe Islands and Åland for more than 80 meetings with about 250 people, with two contact persons from each country.

*Det framtida nordiska hälsosamarbetet* (*The Future Nordic Co-operation on Health*; ANP 2014:730), about 30 pages, made 14 proposals. It was given to Iceland's minister of health on 11 June 2014 and discussed by the ministers that October. Könberg ranked rising antimicrobial resistance first. He proposed cutting Nordic prescribing within five years to Europe's then lowest level, in the Netherlands, and seeking rules through the European Union, the World Health Organization and the [United Nations](/organizations/united-nations): prescriptions where health systems allowed them, no bonuses for prescribers, and national reduction targets. He also suggested that rich countries devote about one-twentieth of a per mille of gross domestic product for five years to new antibiotics, about 75 billion kronor in all and about half a billion a year for the Nordic countries.

Other proposals were a group on highly specialised treatment; a network on rare diagnoses; a virtual centre for register-based research; exchange on public health, including tobacco, alcohol and health inequalities; a review of care in another Nordic country under the EU patient-mobility directive; work on welfare technology, e-health and medicines, including a shared pharmacy for unusual drugs; annual psychiatry meetings, especially on children and young people; a wider mandate for the Svalbard health-preparedness group; short exchanges of officials; and coordination of national experts in the [European Commission](/organizations/european-commission).

In Copenhagen on 16 October 2014 the ministers discussed the proposals but did not adopt them as a programme. They chose to start follow-up on highly specialised treatment, rare diagnoses, psychiatry and exchanges of officials, and to take antibiotic resistance to the ministers for foreign affairs and development aid. The other proposals were left for later. Citing Ebola, they also asked the secretary-general to examine a coordinated response, including medical evacuation.

## Reception and later commentary

### Assessments of the pension reform

In 2013 Nicholas Barr of the London School of Economics, for the [Ministry of Finance](/organizations/ministry-of-finance)’s Expert Group on Public Economics, found the Swedish system relatively stable, built on a broad political agreement, and intact after a severe financial crisis. He cited financial balance, wide coverage, flexible retirement and benefits then adequate for most people, and advised that later changes stay gradual.

About 800 premium-pension funds were on offer, but about 45 percent of savers, and more than 95 percent of first-time choosers, made no active choice; fewer options, he wrote, would simplify choice and cut costs. Automatic balancing was a strength, but it adjusted too sharply and could favour workers over retirees because solvency outweighed benefit levels. Longer lives would lower annual pensions unless the earliest drawing age rose too. Poverty was much higher among single pensioners than among couples, and a survivor could not inherit part of a partner’s income-pension account.

The OECD *Pensions at a Glance 2025* profile records contributions of 18.5 percent of pensionable earnings, or 17.21 percent of gross earnings, a balance mechanism that cuts indexation when assets fall short of liabilities, and a price-indexed, income-tested guarantee. Public spending was 8.0 percent of GDP, close to the OECD average of 8.1. For a full-career worker retiring at 70 in 2072 it modelled a 63.7 percent gross replacement rate at average earnings, including occupational pensions for more than 90 percent of employees, assuming the brake does not bind.

A 2019 World Bank Group paper by Anna Klerby, Bo Larsson and Edward Palmer put the earnings-related gender gap at about 33 percent at retirement, mainly from unpaid care and pay, and argued for shared notional accounts as the default. In the Allra case, the Svea Court of Appeal in 2021 sentenced former chief executive Alexander Ernstberger to six years for bribery and breach of trust over a 2012 securities deal using premium-pension assets, with about 170 million kronor in damages to the Pensionsmyndigheten. The agency had blocked new Allra investments in February 2017. Palmer and Könberg, in their own 2019 World Bank paper, called the notional design financially on track but said adequacy and the fit with the guarantee and occupational pensions still needed work.

### The 1990s health reforms in retrospect

The 1992 care guarantee, a three-month maximum for twelve procedures, did not permanently shorten queues. Marianne Hanning’s 2005 thesis at Uppsala University found shorter waits in the first two years, then a return to the starting level when the guarantee ended in 1996, with regional gaps in surgery rates and waiting times largely intact. Displacement of other patients was not widespread in her study. Clinics that missed the limit were not sanctioned, and few patients switched provider. She called a guarantee a political package, not a remedy by itself.

The family-doctor act was reversed by the next government. On 30 March 1995 the Swedish Social Democratic Party cabinet, in a proposition signed by Ingvar Carlsson and Ingela Thalén, proposed repealing the *husläkare* statute. It offered instead a right, in the Health and Medical Services Act, to choose a fixed physician in primary care, and said primary care should be the base of the system. The social-affairs committee recommended partial approval; the chamber agreed.

### Subsequent pension changes and Könberg's criticism

In *Senioren* in September 2026, Könberg said the premium pension had beaten expectations, that longevity had matched the original arithmetic, and that every Riksdag party now sitting in the pension group was a strength. He objected to the 2021 income-pension supplement and to repeated rises in the guarantee pension. Those steps, he said, had shrunk the “respect distance” between a full working life and little or no earnings, so that work paid less in retirement than intended, and had made the rules hard to follow.

Ds 2020:7 had framed the supplement differently. After January 2020 increases in the guarantee pension and the housing-supplement ceiling had narrowed that gap, the memorandum proposed a top-up, outside lifetime earnings and contribution finance, so that long low-paid careers would sit further above basic protection. The maximum was 600 kronor a month when the base was between 11,000 and 14,000 kronor, payable from September 2021.

The Pensionsmyndigheten reported that on 17 June 2026 the Riksdag adopted a surplus “gas”. From 2027, when assets exceed liabilities by more than 15 percent (a balance ratio above 1.15), an addition goes to income and supplementary pensions for pensioners and savers, beside the brake that cuts indexation below one. The all-party pension group had agreed the outline in August 2025. Könberg said a gas should have come in 2004, and that he would have used 1.1 as the threshold. He wanted occupational pensions made compulsory. Coverage of 80 to 90 percent, he said, had shaped the public level; about 400,000 employees now had none, and Norway had a state plan for the rest. He would accept a higher contribution if guarantee add-ons were cut first, but still called the design stable.

Maria Larsson of SPF Seniorerna, in the same article, backed the original bargain but called later layers a patchwork that had dulled the incentive to work. She wanted the contribution raised to 18.5 percent, a level she said had been proposed and then cut, and a lower gas threshold. She also said short drawdowns of occupational pensions, over five to ten years, had not been anticipated and could leave people on the public pension alone.

At a 2022 seminar covered by *Senioren*, Joakim Palme said the pension group should be abolished: it had not adjusted the system to support work and saving. The system was not as broken as some claimed, he said, but it was shrinking and might provide neither basic security nor earnings replacement. He proposed raising the contribution from 18.5 to 20 percent. Daniel Suhonen called fresh guarantee increases a sign the group had failed, and SPF, PRO, Byggnads and Katalys were reported as agreed that it was underfunded.

## Dated facts

_No published facts on this page yet._

## Methodology

https://factrail.ai/methodology

Canonical: https://factrail.ai/people/bo-konberg