Persson takes charge of coordinating EU affairs

Date: 09/05/1996

By Ole Ryborg

NOBODY is in any doubt who is in charge in Stockholm.

Sweden's new Prime Minister Göran Persson has placed himself firmly centre-stage since taking over as chairman of the governing Social Democrat Party in March.

The premier was expected to be a strong leader, capable of tackling Sweden's economic problems and the long overdue reform of the welfare state.

But when Persson came into power, he gave himself another responsibility that none of his EU counterparts have taken on - putting himself in charge of the domestic coordination of Sweden's policy towards the Union.

The job of coordinating a country's EU policy may seem, at first glance, a mere formality. But in the vast majority of member states, it has given foreign ministers and their civil servants a strong power base - and all governments know how a lack of coordination can easily result in a loss of influence in Brussels.

Germany is often cited by EU diplomats as a country which often fails to wield the influence its size and strength warrants in Brussels due to a lack of clear and consistent points of view. Officials give the example of a German permanent representative who turned up at one meeting with four different briefs from four different ministries in Bonn.

Some diplomats fear that the same thing could happen in Sweden, with Persson's decision to give his own office responsibility for coordinating EU policy creating a risk that the country's permanent representative in Brussels may get two sets of instructions - one from the prime minister's office and another from the Swedish ministry of foreign affairs.

Day-to-day coordination of Union affairs still lies with the foreign affairs ministry, but all controversial issues will in future be settled by the prime minister's office.

However, Persson has yet to get the new regime up and running. When he took over as prime minister, he announced that the changes would come into effect from the end of April. But doing so has proven more complicated than he imagined - not least because of a lack of staff with knowledge of Union affairs, forcing Persson's office to hire foreign ministry civil servants.

After the announcement of the new regime, the Swedish press speculated that the move was simply designed to give Persson a publicly-acceptable excuse to sack the then EU Affairs Minister Mats Hellström.

But some Swedish officials believe it could be just the first step in bringing the coordination of all Union policy under the premier's direct control.