The Brief — The Swedish presidency puts its helmet on

What do safety matches, aerated concrete, tetra packs, zip fasteners, ball bearings, adjustable spanners, seat belts, national identification numbers, baby carriers, dental implants, pacemakers and Bluetooth have in common?

The innovations listed – and many more – were invented by the Swedes, who have long fostered innovation and entrepreneurship.

After all, where would we be without the flatpack self-assembly furniture concept championed by IKEA, a company that has brought us the blue and yellow colours of Sweden no matter where we live in Europe?

In keeping with tradition, the Swedes have placed innovation at the heart of their EU Council presidency priorities, under the heading of green and energy transition. The transition to a resource-efficient, fossil-free future will require major investments in innovative industries that can translate ideas into functional solutions.

Stockholm wants to foster the right regulatory framework and policies to attract these investments.

On a press trip to Sweden to mark the launch of the presidency, journalists were taken to the city of Kiruna in the high north, where they donned helmets and descended 500 meters under the surface into Europe’s largest iron-ore mine.

There, they were informed that the huge, underground caverns were “the home of the green industrial revolution”.

Indeed, this mine – which produces 80% of all iron ore extracted in the EU – is the pioneer of fossil-free steel and the treatment of mine waste, which in many cases can be processed, repurposed, and exported.

In fact, phosphorus is already extracted and processed there to be used in the fertiliser industry. An important substitution, as these types of fertilisers were previously imported from Russia.

In the company of such a large group of representatives of the EU press, the hosts broke the news that very close to this location, Europe’s largest deposit of rare earth metals had been discovered, amounting to more than one million tonnes: Enough to meet the EU’s demands for manufacturing equipment such as electric vehicles and wind turbines.

Innovation, cutting-edge technologies, and valuable raw materials are indeed strong assets Sweden is eager to highlight as the country starts its six-month-stint at the helm of the rotating presidency of the Council of the EU.

However, not everything in Sweden is peachy and brimming with innovation and good news. Journalists on the trip got the impression that the country’s new government, comprising the conservative Moderates and the more far-right Christian Democrats (both EPP-affiliated), had little experience with foreign affairs and governance, for example.

On two occasions, on the complicated case of Turkey blocking the ratification of the Swedish accession to NATO, and the subject of whether or not Sweden would host nuclear weapons on its soil, Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson had to explain that he had been misunderstood by the media and that Sweden would NOT host nuclear weapons.

The long hand of Russia’s fake news dissemination might have played a role there.

But despite the hostile Russian press, which undoubtedly manipulated Kristersson’s quote on the nuclear issue, the prime minister needs to be much more careful when addressing such important topics in public, particularly at a time when the war in Ukraine looks set to escalate.

What we also wish for is that he has peace at home so that he can better focus on tackling international issues.

By the way, this is the first Brief this author wrote with a helmet on his head – possibly symptomatic of the serious situation we’re all in.

The Roundup

The Swedish government circulated an options paper seeking member states’ guidance on some of the most controversial points of the new data law, namely the SMEs exemption, B2G data sharing and trade secrets.

Experts and politicians called for an EU-wide action plan on mental health and advancement of the European Commission’s strategy on mental health, expected to be delivered in 2023.

The European Commission will offer a €25.5 million boost to several African countries to help curtail the impact of an unprecedented food crisis caused by the fallout of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The EU Parliament’s civil liberties (LIBE) committee has voted to move forward with ratifying the Second Additional Protocol to the Budapest Convention on Cybercrime, rejecting the rapporteur’s attempt to block it.

The head of the German car industry association, Hildegard Müller, has criticised the EU for making vehicle production more expensive by political means, which in her view is undermining the bloc’s proclaimed industrial policy objectives.

Following a record year for electricity imports, the relatively mild weather and the relaunch of nuclear reactors, France started 2023 by exporting more electricity to neighbouring countries than it imports, regaining its top spot as the bloc’s main provider.

The French Socialists are set to elect their First Secretary on 12 and 19 January, with the differences between the three candidates for party leader focusing more on how to deal with the recently formed broad left-wing coalition than on fundamental issues.

And, finally check out our Politics Brief: The EU should ditch its superiority complex about ‘malign actors’ and Economy Brief: Starting with the good news.

Look out for…

• College of Commissioners visits Kiruna as part of the Swedish EU Council Presidency launch.
• European Economic and Social Committee debates the Commission’s Strategic Foresight Report .

Views are the author’s.

[Edited by Zoran Radosavljevic/Alice Taylor]