Having just written an article about the Swedish King – on his 70th birthday – and the Swedish Royal family, I have to write another one about another Swedish King. The King of Swedish football.
King Zlatan the 1st. Yesterday Zlatan Ibrahimovic scored goal number 33 & 34 in the French Ligue 1. This was his 50th goal of the season so far. Amazing. His best season ever. PSG has already won Ligue 1 & the French Cup. Zlatan is also on top when it comes to assists.
Today is the birthday of King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden and he celebrates his 70th birthday. A big day for Sweden.
Carl XVI Gustaf, or in his full name Carl Gustaf Folke Hubertus Bernadotte, has been King of Sweden since 1973, when he was crowned at age 27. King Carl Gustaf has three children, Crown Princess Victoria, Prince Carl Philip and Princess Madeleine.
This year the Princesses and the Prince have all had new family members the last year. The Crown Princess has two children with her Prince Daniel, Princess Estelle (4) and Prince Oscar. Prince Carl Philip has a new born child with Princess Sofia, Prince Alexander and Princess Madeleine has two children with Chritipher O’Neill, Princess Leonore (2) and Prince Nicolas.
The Swedish Queen, Silvia – that is very popular in Sweden – has a German father and Brazilian mother.
King Carl XVI Gustaf is kind sports fan and always follows the Swedish national teams with great interest, especially during Olympic Games. In fact His Majesty found his wife Queen Silvia during the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich. Thus the Swedish Royal family will indeed be present at the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio, taking into account the Queen and her family is from Brazil.
I have met the King and Queen four times during official interntional visits abroad.
I have also met Crown Princess Victoria, from who I recieved the Gothia Price for Best Swedish Innovation of the Year – for the innovation of the AEO (The Stairway).
The world is changing. We need to change with it. The only thing that is sure is that everything will change. It was never better before. It will always be better in the future. Today we know how to do reform and modernization, we know what works and what doesn’t. The world of Customs and Trade – the exiting environment of movement of people and goods – is a perfect example of change. Last year more than 4 billion people went by airplane somewhere in the world. Amazing numbers. It will be more this year. Global trade has continued to grow even during the years of global financial crises. Slower than expected, but still. It will continue to grow. We see huge movement of people – refugees and others – that aim to find a better and safer life somewhere else. We have only seen the start of this trend. It will continue and it will grow over the years to come. We also know that there is a direct linkage between trade development and social development of our societies. So how do we build a better future? The answer we continue to develop through do capacity building. Capacity building in not technical assistance, training, education, technology developments. Not alone. These are all components, but capacity building is more than that. It is about building sustainable capacity to manage change over time. We know how to successfully design, develop and implement new models, methods and systems. It is all about people. We need to build our future on the past. All that is good and works should be maintained and further developed – and we should not continue to re-invent the wheel over and over again – but we must also invent and develop new models to face the challenges of the future, a future that we know changes faster and faster. Some people fear change. I love and embrace it. It is the only thing that keeps us alive. The people of this planet deserves a better future – let’s give it to them.
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