Goals of the Swedish EU Presidency Autumn 2009

Charlotte introduced His Excellency Hans Magnusson who is currently the Swedish ambassador to the Netherlands. Mr Magnusson is a long time diplomat who has served in many countries and currently speaks seven languages.

The speaker started his presentation by presenting the history of Sweden in the European Union: Sweden became a member in 1995 after a referendum which passed by a very small majority. Since then the population of Sweden has had a "difficult" relation with the E.U. and the negative feeling was clearly visible with the refusal of the entry in the Euro system in 2004 through a referendum. The situation has now changed also thanks to the efforts of wholeheartedly promoting the E.U that the Swedish government has made since 2006. As of today 48% of the population is in favour of the E.U. against 26% who is against.

The presentation then switched to the presidency of the E.U. which Sweden is serving in the second semester of 2009 (more information on www.se2009.eu ). This difficult task has been planned since three years and has had a budget of 80M ?. In addition to the already many challenges this particular presidency is faced with some institutional issues: it might be the last presidency under the old Nice treaty (if Ireland accepts the Lisbon treaty next month) it had to take into account the election of a new European Parliament and the relative political changes and finally will have to consider a new European commission (the re-election of Mr. Barroso should be officialised in the next few days).

His Excellency then concentrated his speech on the five priorities that Sweden has chosen for its mandate:

• Dealing with the economic crisis by trying to reduce the E.U. unemployment and setting up a supervisory framework of financial markets so as to avoid the excesses of the past
• Preparing the Copenhagen summit on climate by promoting an international climate agreement, in particular Sweden would like the E.U. to promise a 30%, more realistically 20%, reduction of the pollutant emissions and to establish a unitary E.U. position on climate issues.
• The Stockholm programme: this topic deals with the combat against crime trough a strategic work programme in collaboration with the different justice and home affairs departments. Moreover Sweden would like to emphasise the importance of the guarantee of the rights of individuals and to promote a unitary asylum and immigration policy.
• Baltic sea strategy: Sweden would like to develop a E.U. macro regional cooperation through a common E.U strategy for this region.
• Relations with extra E.U. countries: the E.U. should have a coherent external policy, should continue an enlargement process and improve the relations with neighbouring countries. Another priority on this topic is to strengthen the cooperation among member states so as to improve the political role of the E.U in the world and to develop a common trade and development policy.

The presentation was well appreciated and Mr. Magnusson accepted to answer a few questions regarding energy issues, immigration policy, expansion and the location of the European parliament. Karl thanked the speaker on behalf of the Club and Ehsan presented His Excellency with a copy of the "Taste for life" cookbook.

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