Playing the name game

Date: 25/07/1996

Sweden's government ministers have been told by their Prime Minister Göran Persson to avoid an outbreak of AND in Europe by learning all their EU colleagues' names by heart.

To see if the order had been followed, the Swedish newspaper Svenska Dagbladet put five ministers, including Persson, to the test.

Sadly none of them scored full marks. Top of the class was Foreign Minister Lena Hjelm-Wallen, who could name all of her Union's counterparts except Spain's Abel Matutes. Persson embarrassed himself by coming second, being unable to cite the Christian names of his Italian counterpart, Romano Prodi, nor that of the Greek Prime Minister Kostas Simitis.

Bottom of the heap was the maverick Social Affairs Minister Margareta Winberg, who no doubt endeared herself to millions by being unable to name any of her EU opposite numbers. The former Swedish farm minister said she could have rattled off all the agriculture names with no trouble, but had not yet met any of the social affairs ministers.

Sweden's current Agriculture Minister Anika Ahnberg could have done with Winberg's help - she got stuck on a few names and, when asked for the first name of her Italian counterpart, she blustered: “He is simply not a person with whom you would use the first name.”