Climate and the Baltic

Another issue that will be very high profile during the Swedish presidency is the climate negotiations in Copenhagen in December.

Swedish environment minister Andreas Carlgren was in Sofia the week before last to speak to his Bulgarian counterpart, as part of a series of visits to each of the EU’s environment ministers ahead of the presidency.

This is being done, Beijer says, because of a major challenge ahead.

"The Copenhagen negotiations are about a successor to the Kyoto Protocol. The situation has changed and there is a real possibility to move ahead, and we see a real need to move ahead as well.

"Global warning and climate change is becoming more and more an obvious fact rather than a disputed theory. Handling the EU’s position in these negotiations will require quite a lot of really nimble footwork in the first months of our presidency," Beijer says.

"We need to come to the table in Copenhagen in December with a united EU, agreed on what sort of negotiating stance we take on different aspects and that will require a great deal of negotiation within the EU beforehand."

This means that the first few months of the Swedish EU presidency, probably up to October, will be very active ones with regard to the climate negotiations.

"We need to get everyone on board. There are issues such as how to share out the financial burdens, how to share out the emissions already decided by the EU in 2008. We said that we would reduce them by 20 per cent. We now think that we need to go to 30 per cent.

"These are major and difficult issues for member states to handle and so these will be difficult negotiations."

Sweden’s perspective is that there is, in fact, a lot of economic potential in the kind of changes that are needed to reach these targets, "but some countries feel better equipped to take advantage of that potential than others," Beijer says.

"And, of course, it is quite reasonable that one tries to take different countries’ perspectives into account. The EU is made up of member states with very different economic, geographical and environmental situations. We are all agreed that something needs to be done, but the devil is in the detail."

There is political will, Beijer says. "The question is how strong and how much pain different governments can take."

Another crucial area is justice and home affairs. In place currently is The Hague programme, which has been running for the past five years, and is coming to its close.

With justice and home affairs being an issue of great importance, and with key issues such as immigration, "hopefully by the end of our presidency, there will be a Stockholm programme for the next five years".

Then there is the issue of energy security. The opening days of the Czech presidency at the start of 2009 saw the gas crisis, but, Beijer says, this crisis served as an illustration of the energy security issue.

He says that he is quite sure that during the Swedish presidency, there will be active work on this issue, "and I am quite sure that Bulgaria will be a very active player".

Beijer also outlines Sweden’s Baltic Sea Initiative. "Almost all the countries surrounding the Baltic Sea are EU member states now. The one exception is Russia. The Baltic Sea is in a very bad way. I think that a quarter of the bottom is officially declared dead."

This is the result of a combination of factors – geographical, meaning that it is brackish sea with only limited access to the open sea, but also the factor of pollution.

"Fishing is almost gone, and it used to be a rich fishing water.

"At the same time, the states around the Baltic have different economic staying power and the ability to tackle these environmental issues, so we are taking an initiative during our presidency to see what can be done within the EU region to boost the ability to do things together to tackle common problems together, such as the environmental problem in the Baltic, not by throwing money at it, there is money already, but by using that money better and by co-ordinating actions among the states."

Sweden is doing this as a pilot project "because we see other sub regions within the EU where similar approaches might be of benefit," Beijer says. The Danube and the Black Sea, could benefit if such a project illustrates what can be done with existing funds, resources, and legal instruments, to improve performance in tackling common problems and also, incidentally, in raising the economic potential.

An especial challenge that will be faced by the Swedish presidency is that during the latter half of 2009, there will be changes at EU institutions.

Not only will there will be new European Parliament, after the June 2009 elections, but also a new European Commission.

The new EP will take some time to get up and running, which will complicate matters because the European Parliament is a partner in decision-making.

"The Commission doesn’t come in till later in the year so we’ll have a caretaker Commission and it’s quite important that the Commission is a fully functioning one because they quite often do the technical work.

"We are not worried about that but it’s something that is worth noting."

Further, Beijer says, there is the question of the Lisbon Treaty, which may or may not come into force.

"If it does, after a successful Irish referendum and ratifications elsewhere, we will have to put some effort into supporting the Commission in starting the implementation, starting to build the new institutions that go with the Lisbon Treaty. And that are designed to make the EU faster, sleeker, more relevant, also more democratic and transparent, all good stuff as far as we are concerned," Beijer says.