I've got Europe in my home. In my cupboard, in my mobile phone, in my fridge, in my bed... well just about everywhere in my life.

I am talking about directives orginiating from the EU, and they can amount to suprising numbers in the day of an ordinary citizen. So I am collecting facts about regulations met by an ordinary citizen in an ordinary day. More to follow here on Café Babel Stockholm, but you can help me out. Give me some of your more interesting and curious rules and regulations in the comments and they will be illustrated in the upcoming article.

Nasty YouTube video clip about the Common Agricultural Policy CAP with chef Jamie Oliveoil.

The British Tax Payers' Alliance are making fun of celebrity chef Jamie Oliver (that will be the responsible chef for the G20 meeting in London). But the question brought up the Jamie Oliveoil video clip about the fudge on agriculture policy are serious and worth considering. How did we end up in the EU agriculture fudge and how can we get out of it?

How do you dismantle a system that like the CAP has outlived its initial objectives? The EU's farm subsidies are now handed out to rich and large farms. The CAP thus now also works against smaller farms in less affluent areas.

It's not future oriented to go for the CAP, a policy... that is connected with the Second World War - Former Swedish Prime Minister Göran Persson

The single institution that works as a drivning force for European integration today is the European Court of Justice. That is irony for you. So, what should the European parliamentary election in June be about? How about really investing in a political union? Or should the European Union become more driven by experts and less political?

We are at a crossroad, as it is hardly an option to just move on at the same pace as before. A number of member countries are really in dire straits in the economic crisis. Who guarantee that they will receive the needed assistance?

It would be difficult to use the Union as it stands, as the present treaty explicitly prohibits this. A member state cannot forward its budgetary problems to other members. The organisation that could do that would be the IMF- the International Monetary Fund.

Recently, Joschka Fischer, the former German foreign minister discussed that the European Central Bank ECB should start issuing EU bonds. Those bonds would create a debt for the EU, in order to get funds for relief. Fischer is proposing a huge step towards establishing a supernational government. If a political body can raise a debt, it is also close to being able to institute taxes to service its debts.

Besides the problems for governments bonds at the moment, one of the few potential buyers would be the Russian Federation. Russia has its fair share of problems of its' own, but the forceful expansion of Russian interests could mean that they would buy those EU bonds. Would this be a good development, particularly for the new member states?

So what is the solution? Leaving the euro and currency union? Not that probable. Will there be national bankruptcies? That would break the union in pieces.

There is a more difficult solution. More difficult because it requires reform of the European Union. The bureaucratic organisation of today, where the member countries confirm what the national authorities already have agreed upon is at a dead end. The only ones that could be charged with that authority would be the members of the European Parliament. This would mean that they would have to treat the upcoming election with a much more controversial stance, giving the understanding to the voters that European decision also require a heated debate.

In the end the ones that should increase their attendence at the elections are the politicians, especially at period in time when the nature of the European Union could be significantly changed.

Wille Fahler at the Ministryoftruth gives an interesting take on the economic crisis in On Money & Recessions - Recessions are not the problem. The difficult question is if this could mean that the many large programmes enacted by governments all over Europe are in fact bad investments? What do you think?

Last time Sweden had the presidency was under Prime Minister Göran Persson in 2001, will the new government of Fredrik Reinfeldt be better at the helm?

Göran Persson’s government was not really interested in the European Union. Certainly, it saw the benefits of the inner market and parts of the legal harmonisation, but it did succeed in the EU’s big bang enlargement in 2004, of building the Lisbon Agenda, and consolidating the Kyoto treatment for climate change.

No small feats, but Sweden received the help from the Romano Prodi-commission, a benign European Parliament, and the massive support of the United Kingdom and Tony Blair. PM Reinfeldt’s government will see a new commission take form in November, perhaps a Barroso 2.

For the European Parliament election. Sweden’s political parties seem to field candidates focusing on being critical to the EU. Being critical to the EU is good thing, but without an agenda to begin with it will create problems. Possibly Swedes will elect EU-sceptical parties

There will be difficulties to find to partners in pushing an agenda. France has previously showed its disapproval for the Czech and Swedish presidencies. Germany will have an election in September, with a Bundeskanslerin Merkel that is weaker than before. The presidency will be shorter and when Sweden takes over the presidency in July it will be in the middle of the vacations, with the European holidays starting in August. The Swedish presidency will be short of time.

With a more active Russia, some would even say expansionist after the war with Georgia, it could become a problem that Swedish foreign minister Carl Bildt is not that welcome in Moscow after speaking up against the Kremlin’s policies.

Sweden’s agenda will probably not be a great surprise, building on the priorities of the Lisbon Agenda, of the post- Kyoto agreement in Copenhagen. Enlargement sees a great deal of fatigue in Europe, so seeing Croatia as member in 2009 or 2010 will not be possible.

Keep up for further updates and analysis on the Swedish presidency!

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