EU ENLARGEMENT AND THE SWEDISH EU PRESIDENCY

The Swedish EU Council Presidency during the first half of 2001 was generally perceived in positive terms by commentators and practitioners alike. While the primary memory, tragically enough, may be the riots in the streets of Göteborg during the European Council meeting (June 15-16), for EU development, it may well be argued that the progress in the enlargement negotiations was the most important accomplishment of the period. The outcome of the Göteborg summit in the enlargement sphere has been hailed as potentially very important; Swedish Prime Minister Göran Persson even went as far as labelling it “a historic moment”.1 In short, the European Council decided that membership negotiations should be concluded with the most advanced candidate countries by the end of 2002, in order for these countries to take part, as EU members, in the elections to the European Parliament in June of 2004. For a Presidency that set out to prioritise enlargement over all other issues, this outcome may well be labelled a success. At the same time, the outcome needs to be put in principal perspective, for example when it comes to questions about the room for influence of the Presidency as an institution and about the future of the enlargement process. In general terms, this paper seeks to analyse the Swedish Presidency in the enlargement area. There are two main avenues along which any given Presidency can be evaluated in the enlargement sphere: the incremental yet potentially important progress in the negotiation process, and the symbolically important outcome of the European Council summit at the end of the Presidency. This duality is also reflected in the ambitions of the Swedish Presidency as they were presented prior to the Swedish term