Sweden is to sell its remaining 7 per cent stake in Nordea, the Nordic region's biggest bank, its second sale of Nordea shares this year and giving the centre-right ruling coalition some fiscal room for manoeuvre ahead of next year's election.

The government, Nordea's second-biggest owner behind Finnish insurer Sampo, said it would sell up to 284 million ordinary shares in Nordea and will use the proceeds to reduce the national debt.

The remaining stake is worth some 22.5 billion Swedish crowns (€2.6 billion) at current market prices and its sale sale effectively closes an era, the government having owned a stake in the bank since the country’s local banking crisis in the early 1990s.

"The role of the state is to regulate banks, not to own them," Minister of Financial Markets Peter Norman said in a statement. It would be the third sale of government shares in Nordea in around two years.

Faced with elections in 2014 and backed by a relatively strong Swedish economy, the country’s centre-right coalition government has already been loosening its purse strings with planned income tax cuts in its 2014 budget.

– (Reuters)