Bildt Faces EU Expansion Hurdles - by Marc Champion
Expanding the European Union has few bigger fans than Sweden's foreign minister, Carl Bildt. But as Sweden takes over the bloc's rotating presidency for the second half of this year, even he is cautious about what he can do. Mr. Bildt, who spent the 1990s in efforts to resolve the wars of Yugoslavia, says he still believes enlargement remains the EU's most effective foreign policy tool and the key to stabilizing its neighborhood, from the Balkans to the Caucasus.Mr. Bildt remains a committed fan of using the promise of EU expansion to reach 100 million neighbors in Turkey and the Balkans, as well as another 80 million in a new so-called Eastern Partnership that he helped to launch earlier this year, touching countries from Ukraine to Azerbaijan. And he notes that Iceland, hit hard by the financial crisis, could join very quickly indeed if as expected its parliament votes to apply. That, he said, would give the EU a bigger voice in deciding resource and other issues related to the Arctic circle.One thing that won't be on the agenda over the next six months for the first time in a while, says Mr. Bildt, is "fixing" the EU's relations with the U.S., which he describes as "the best in living memory." He noted that the EU and US administration were closely aligned on most of the big foreign policy issues of the day, including Iran, the Middle East and Afghanistan.
Note EU-Digest: the EU must start to become more serious at focusing on its own objectives instead of blindly accepting to be a part of the overall US Global strategic interests and plans. This does not, however, have to mean dropping out of the Atlantic partnership, but rather following a more independent course.
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