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Taking on the challenge - Sweden takes over the EU presidency from the Czech Republic
01.07.2009, 16:53
The Czech Republic in the past six months helped to end a severe EU gas crisis and to ease Ireland's Lisbon treaty problem. However, diplomatic failures and internal battles risk it going down as "the worst EU presidency in history."
Its Brussels sculptural installation, Entropa, caused a diplomatic incident with Bulgaria after depicting the country as a toilet. Additionally, Mr. Topolanek's insult of Obama's economic stimulus plan as a "road to hell", his spokesman's initially calling Israel's attack on Gaza a "defensive act", presidency officials leaving passport numbers and travel details of over 200 delegates on a public computer, and Czech EU officials declining to consult with European colleagues before launching new initiatives are only some examples of mistakes that occurred during the Czech presidency.
But, the biggest stain on the Czech presidency's reputation is portrayed by the Vaclav Klaus-engineered fall of Mr Topolanek's government in mid-mandate after a vote of no confidence. This left the European Union politically headless for three months and swept away Prague's best men.
However, after a debatable Czech presidency, Sweden has taken over at the helm of the EU on Wednesday (1 July) for a six-month presidency, and therefore finds issues such as dealing with the Irish referendum on the Lisbon Treaty, motivating countries to not only participate monetarily in the climate change deal, and last but not least countering global recession on its agenda. In particular, the latter is a matter of dealing with the financial crisis and tackling the rising unemployment that is currently affecting the whole of Europe together.
Furthermore, the development and strengthening of EU cooperation on justice and home affairs in the Stockholm Programme, as well as the adoption of an EU strategy for the Baltic Sea region, in order to deal with environmental problems and increase the region's competitiveness, along with continuing the work to form closer ties between the EU and its neighbouring countries and EU enlargement are issues to be addressed by the Swedish presidency.
However, delays are expected to be caused by the fact that the European Commission is on its way out, while the fresh power currents in the European Parliament will take time to become apparent. Uncertainty is also clouding the nomination of Jose Manuel Barroso for a second term in office as European Commission president, an election Swedish officials are unwilling to postpone.
In addition to known problems on the to-do list, it has to be considered that most presidencies find themselves dealing with unplanned additions to the list. However, Swedish diplomats have a reputation for being skilled consensus makers and being a smaller member state, it is not viewed as bringing much political baggage to the negotiating table.