According to Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt, the Swedish chapter of the rotating EU Presidency closes with the EU having made progress in several key areas it had set out to change. He acknowledged however that the policy area which has caused him the most difficulty during this time has been the climate change issue, and in particular the COP-15 negotiations which took place in Copenhagen last month.

He explained that ‘The most difficult policy area to manage has been the issue of climate change. For the simple reason that there is a frustrating element in being able to state that science has proved that humans affect the climate and that we basically have both the economic funds and technological ability to do something about it’.

Mr Reinfeldt regretted that no agreement could be reached over a comprehensive successor to Kyoto Protocol, but praised the fact that a mandate had been reached that would allow further progress. ‘Given how much I have worked on this, and how much the democracies pushed for an agreement in Copenhagen, because that was mainly what happened, some progress has been made. The documents we produced does provide a structure for how to resolve this, but the numbers and ambitions are not high enough.’

He believes that the UN Conference in Denmark ‘gave an insight into both the world’s ambitions and the world’s flaws’. Some of its failures, as he went on to explain, were borne out of ‘the fact that the global political leadership lacks what the EU has: a well-oiled decision-making machine. Also, too many do not take responsibility’.