Occasional papers

Editors: Nadège Chambon and Jonas Eriksson*

The European Commission recently launched a discussion on the architecture of direct payments, with a view to rethinking the philosophy of agricultural regulation within the EU. The debate has been pursued under the Swedish EU Presidency. The European Commission will present a communication to launch a public debate on this theme during the summer or early autumn of 2010.

Notre Europe and SIEPS therefore invited specialists, policy-makers, Commission officials and researchers to a seminar in Stockholm on 16 September 2009, to discuss the question, “Which Common Policy for Agriculture and Rural Areas beyond 2013?” As regards substance the report follows the structure and content of the seminar: Rolf Eriksson, State Secretary at the Swedish Ministry of Agriculture, outlined the Swedish Presidency’s work on CAP reform, after which a morning panel discussed the role of the CAP in European integration. A second panel concluded the seminar by discussing how to improve the regulation of agriculture beyond 2013.

Editors: Fredrik Langdal and Göran von Sydow

In order to better understand the Swedish Presidency of the European Union, SIEPS invited a number of experts on the European Union from different member states. They were asked to write short analytical texts on how the Presidency has succeeded in relation to expectations and ambitions. The judgments are however provisional as they cover the developments up until November 2009. SIEPS’ researchers Fredrik Langdal and Göran von Sydow have edited the volume and written an introduction to the texts. The publication The Swedish Presidency: European Perspectives is part of an on-going project where SIEPS analyses the rotating presidency of the EU.

The contributors highlight the handling of the Lisbon Treaty and the institutional questions and underline the importance of the outcome of the climate change negotiations in Copenhagen for the legacy of the Presidency.

Authors: David Král, Vladimír Bartovic and Věra Řiháčková

The Czech Presidency of 2009 inherited a fully charged agenda after France.

Three severe external crises confronted the Czech government as it took over at the helm of the EU: the gas dispute between Ukraine and Russia; renewed hostilities in the Gaza Strip; and the deepest global economic crisis since the Great Depression.

Despite a quite successful handling of these crises, in particular as concerns the issue of security energy supply, the Czech Presidency risks instead being remembered for the domestic wrangling over the ratification of the Lisbon Treaty and political dispute among coalition partners and in parliament over Czech EU-policy. Domestic political rows resulted in the unseating of the government and threw the Czech Presidency into disarray.