Gradual and well thought-out membership of the European project. There are several reasons to be cheerful about the Swedish Presidency of the Council of the EU and to trust that it will be positive and proactive. Agence EUROPE readers already have the facts at their fingertips for making a preliminary judgement: an overview of the Swedish Presidency's programme and key players' intentions and ideas have been explained at length in our daily newsletters and the special issue “Europe as seen from Stockholm” (issue 2520 in our EUROPE/Documents series) gives an overall assessment, exclusive statements and relevant documentation including contact points and a timetable of events.
My personal optimism is not only based on the high qualities that the Swedish people and politicians are renowned for (including the equal role for women - Sweden is one of the two EU member states that elected more female MEPs (10) than male (8)), but above all, the way Sweden has gradually warmed to the European construction project. General De Gaulle would not have found any rent-a-mob in Sweden jumping on their chairs and calling for “Europe! Europe!” The country waited a long time before asking to join the club. The referendum where the Swedes voted to join the EU in November 1994 had a prudent outcome: a 52.2% vote in favour of membership (out of a remarkable 82.4% turnout). Sweden then hesitated over certain programmes - in particular, the country has not yet joined the euro. Swedish government leaders are themselves certain that joining the single currency would be a good thing to do and believe the time is fast approaching when the population would agree. Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt's message to public opinion is that some of the objectives so dear to Sweden (like climate change and protecting nature) can only be reached at European level.
The Baltic Sea and other programmes. Equally European is the Baltic Sea programme for the region bordering one of the world's most polluted seas. Last month, the European Commission unveiled its planned strategy for the region, which includes eight member states on the Baltic (Germany, Poland, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania) plus Russia. Obviously no single member state is capable of devising a Baltic Strategy on its own or to negotiating with Russia; only the EU can do that. Nearly all the problems in the area are issues covered by EU policies and the region already receives several tranches of EU funding. The idea is to get the Council of Ministers and the European Parliament to approve the new strategy by the end of 2009, under the Swedish Presidency. It is no surprise that approval of the Baltic Strategy is one of the Swedish Presidency's priorities and the Swedes will not adopt the short-sighted attitude displayed by France's initial ideas about its plans for the Mediterranean region.
When it comes to the environment, another natural Swedish Presidency priority is preparing for the United Nations conference in Copenhagen in December, along with deciding on targets and monitoring progress in economic recovery programmes. I have no intention of simply listing the new Presidency's aims and objectives - Agence EUROPE's editors and journalists have already done this, and will continue to report on progress. The work will not be easy. Along with the above projects, the Swedish Presidency also inherits from the Czech Presidency (which made some remarkable achievements at the end of its six months, like the compromise on re-visiting EU industrial pollution rules, see issue 9929) a number of projects it was unable to bring to a conclusion - like the soil protection directive and burden-sharing among Member States for the costs of climate protection in the developing world (ahead of the Copenhagen conference).
A complicated and unstable institutional mix. The Swedish Presidency will be acting against an extremely complicated institutional backdrop. The new European Parliament is only beginning to get underway; a new European Commission is about to be decided upon; the Lisbon Treaty issue has not yet been sorted; and it is anyone's guess how the next referendum in Ireland will work out. The Swedish prime minister has argued the case for the European Parliament voting this month on whether Jose-Manuel Barroso should be renewed as the president of the European Commission (see yesterday's newsletter) and has commented on the tricky debates he will have to manage concerning the appointment of a fixed president (chair) of the European Council and a fixed president of the External Relations Council (who would also be vice-president of the European Commission and high representative for the CFSP and CFDP). Fredrik Reinfeldt, who is not a candidate for either of these jobs, is well-placed to take a cool, calm view of the matter. Which gives us one more reason to be cheerful.
(F.R./transl.fl)