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O 201553Z MAY 09
FM AMEMBASSY STOCKHOLM
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE 4362
INFO RUEHZL/EUROPEAN POLITICAL COLLECTIVE PRIORITY

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 STOCKHOLM 000309 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: OREP PGOV ECON SW
SUBJECT: SWEDEN SCENESETTER FOR CODEL TANNER 
 
Introduction 
------------ 
 
¶1. The U.S. Embassy in Stockholm warmly welcomes your visit 
to Sweden, the first Congressional delegation to travel here 
since Rep. Larson of Connecticut visited in September 2007. 
The United States and Sweden share a strong and abiding 
relationship built on a foundation of shared values, cultural 
ties, trade and investment, and a commitment to resolving 
global problems such as climate change.  The Government of 
Sweden places high importance on strengthening transatlantic 
ties and cooperation, especially in the run up to its EU 
Presidency (July-December 2009).  As a small nation that has 
sought for two centuries to avoid armed conflict, Sweden 
believes its interests are best projected through 
multilateral agreements in international institutions, and 
thus focuses its foreign policy efforts within the frameworks 
of the UN, the European Union (EU), and other multilateral 
fora.  At the same time, Sweden is a strong NATO partner, 
with troops under NATO command in Kosovo and in Afghanistan 
(where Sweden now has 400 troops and is deploying 100 more 
later this year). 
 
¶2. In your meetings with Members of Parliament and government 
officials, we recommend that your main message focus on 
thanking Sweden for its contributions in Afghanistan -- both 
foreign assistance and military -- and urging them to do 
more, including by leading EU efforts to staff fully the 
EUPOL police mission. 
 
Political and Economic Overview 
------------------------------- 
 
¶3. Prime Minister Reinfeldt leads a four-party, center-right 
governing coalition that, in 2006, turned out the Social 
Democrats who had governed Sweden for most of the 20th 
century.  Jockeying has already begun for the 2010 
parliamentary elections, with the governing coalition 
remaining strong in the polls.  The public focus over the 
next year will remain on the financial crisis and employment. 
 Most foreign policy issues, including NATO relations, are 
not in the front of the voters' minds.  The financial crisis 
hit Swedish industry hard, and Swedish banks are suffering 
from extensive credit exposure in the Baltic states and 
Ukraine.  Swedish Minister of Finance Anders Borg predicts 
the unemployment rate will continue to rise until it hits 
11.7 percent in 2011.  Sweden will not stimulate the domestic 
market, as it needs to retain a substantial safety margin in 
the event the financial crisis deteriorates further.  Right 
now, the energies of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) 
are focused on the EU presidency. 
 
EU Presidency Priorities 
------------------------ 
 
¶4. Sweden is now finessing its policy goals for its EU 
presidency, to be officially revealed this June.  The 
government has already publicly discussed main themes, which 
include: climate change, EU enlargement and the Eastern 
Partnership, and harmonizing EU visa and asylum policies. 
 
-- Climate Change: Climate change will be PM Reinfeldt's top 
priority, with the goal of reaching a binding international 
agreement at the 15th Conference of the Parties (COP 15) to 
be held in Copenhagen this December, near the end of the 
Swedish presidency.  Key elements should involve clean-tech 
transfers and participation by India and China to reduce 
carbon emissions.  Your interlocutors will be interested in 
hearing your views on U.S. plans for the COP 15. 
 
-- EU Enlargement: This is a major issue for Foreign Minister 
Carl Bildt, who wants to ensure EU enlargement continues on 
schedule.  Sweden strongly supports membership for Turkey and 
wants to ensure the accession process moves forward. 
President Obama's comments on the strategic importance of 
Turkey joining the EU were warmly welcomed here (in contrast 
to France).  Bildt also wants talks with Moldova, 
Bosnia-Herzegovina, Serbia and Kosovo to continue, with the 
latter three proceeding together towards membership.  Bildt 
is actively negotiating with key actors in the Western 
Balkans to resolve territorial disputes, including the border 
dispute between Croatia and Slovenia; the Swedes hoped 
Croatia would join the EU during their Presidency, but the 
lack of progress on the border issue has dampened 
expectations.  Your MFA interlocutors will be especially 
interested in U.S. thinking on ways to keep Turkish EU 
accession on track, and on the challenges of Muslim 
integration in Europe. 
 
-- The Eastern Partnership (EaP): A Swedish-Polish 
initiative, the EaP is scheduled to be implemented during the 
Swedish presidency.  It is an agreement between the EU and 
 
STOCKHOLM 00000309  002 OF 003 
 
 
Ukraine, Moldova, Belarus, Azerbaijan, Armenia and Georgia. 
The Partnership aims to go beyond the current EU Neighborhood 
Policy to deepen bilateral cooperation and integration, 
including the possibility of cooperating on security, 
migration, economic, environmental and social issues.  The 
goal of the EaP is to give these former Soviet republics the 
opportunity to have a partnership with the EU similar to what 
Norway has: select membership benefits without the membership 
card.  The Swedes are concerned about Russian FM Lavrov's 
recent criticisms that the EaP is an effort by the EU to 
expand its "sphere of influence." 
 
-- Refugees and Migration: The EU's "Hague Program" on 
migration and asylum will end in 2009 and Sweden already has 
taken the lead within the EU in developing a new five-year 
"Stockholm Program" that will aim to further harmonize EU 
asylum and migration policies, leading to a common European 
migration and asylum system.  During 2006-07, Sweden accepted 
some 40,000 Iraqi refugees for resettlement -- nearly as much 
as the rest of Europe and United States combined.  Swedes 
want to see other EU Members States do their share. 
 
Non-Alignment and NATO 
---------------------- 
 
¶5. In 2007, Sweden's Parliamentary Defense Commission (an 
influential high-level advisory group that includes 
representative of all seven parliamentary parties as well as 
think tankers and retired senior government officials) 
presented a report on Sweden's security that included a 
significant abandonment of traditional non-alignment 
language.  The report states that "Sweden will not stay 
passive if a catastrophe or an attack would strike another EU 
member state or another Nordic country.  We expect these 
countries to act the same way if Sweden were to be attacked." 
 After reviewing the report, Bildt wrote in his blog that 
"With this, option of neutrality is removed from every 
reasonable case.... The ground is prepared for security 
policy cooperation not least in Northern Europe but also 
within the EU and with NATO." 
 
¶6. Of the four parties in the center-right governing 
coalition, the Moderates (including your primary 
interlocutor, MP Karin Enstrom) and Liberals are pro-NATO; 
the Christian Democrats are abandoning their NATO 
agnosticism; and the Center Party -- the second largest in 
the coalition -- will go along only if the opposition Social 
Democrats do.  An agreement dating from 2002 binds the main 
political parties to making no move on joining NATO without 
consensus of the others.  This gives the opposition Social 
Democrats a veto - which they are exercising.  The Swedish 
public, in general, remains skeptical of NATO, but poll 
numbers show support for NATO membership slowly rising, 
especially after Russia's invasion of Georgia last August. 
PM Reinfeldt and Defense Minister Sten Tolgfors have made 
clear that NATO membership is not on the agenda during the 
government's current term of office, but the implicit 
conclusion of this is that if the center-right alliance has a 
second term in office beginning in 2010, then the question of 
NATO membership might surface again.  Tolgfors put forward 
the conditions for a formal NATO application:  political 
consensus (i.e., Social Democrats on board), public 
acceptance, and not without Finland. 
 
¶7. Although Sweden is not a member of NATO, the current 
government and most of the defense and security establishment 
understands the essential role NATO has played in 
guaranteeing a Europe "whole, free and at peace."  Sweden has 
taken part in NATO's Partnership for Peace since 1994, and it 
participated in peacekeeping operations in Bosnia under NATO 
command.  The Reinfeldt government has expanded cooperation 
with NATO in multiple arenas; for example, it has expanded 
its diplomatic mission to NATO and Sweden will host nine 
other NATO and non-NATO air forces in the "Loyal Arrow" 
live-fire air combat exercise during June 8-18. 
 
Afghanistan Contributions/ISAF 
------------------------------ 
 
¶8. Within the framework of ISAF, Sweden leads a Provincial 
Reconstruction Team (PRT) in four northern provinces in 
Afghanistan.  There are currently 400 troops stationed in the 
PRT, which is headquartered in Mazar-e-Sharif.  Sweden plans 
to deploy another 100 before year's end.  Three Swedish 
policemen and six advisors are currently assigned to EUPOL, 
the EU,s police training program in Afghanistan, and this 
commitment will likely double in 2009.  Sweden supports the 
training of the Afghanistan National Army (ANA) by providing 
one Operational Mentoring and Liaison Team (OMLT), and will 
contribute a second in late fall.  For the summer elections, 
Sweden will send a C-130 Hercules aircraft with support crew 
for ISAF HQ's disposal, and three medevac helicopters in 
 
STOCKHOLM 00000309  003 OF 003 
 
 
2010-2011. 
 
¶9. In 2008, Sweden opened its embassy in Kabul, establishing 
a permanent presence.  The embassy is currently staffed by 
seven MFA employees who form the hub of a more active and 
coordinated Swedish assistance program.  Sweden is working to 
increase its civilian presence in the four northern provinces 
for which it is responsible, providing $57.5 million to 
Afghanistan in 2008 -- the largest recipient of Swedish 
assistance in Asia.  Democracy, human rights and good 
governance programs received roughly half of these funds, 
most of which was doled out through the Afghanistan 
Reconstruction Fund.  In 2009, Sweden expects to provide 
$17.5 million in humanitarian assistance alone to Afghanistan. 
 
¶10. Your interlocutors will be most interested in the 
Administration's Afghanistan-Pakistan policy and your 
thinking on regional security trends, including Russia.  You 
may want to thank the Swedes for their important 
contributions to Afghanistan -- emphasizing both the 
development assistance and military support -- including in a 
public setting.  On a proportional basis, Sweden is in the 
very top echelon of EU Member States in terms of the numbers 
of troops and the amount of money dedicated to the effort in 
Afghanistan. 
 
Kosovo/KFOR 
----------- 
 
¶11. Sweden has 260 troops in NATO's KFOR mission in Kosovo, 
and the government says they will remain through the end of 
the year.  At the same time, the MFA thinks the mission needs 
to be calibrated to meet challenges on the ground, which are 
increasingly becoming "police work in nature."  Consequently, 
Sweden welcomes the proportional shift with more police 
officers coming in as military troops depart.  Sweden is 
tentatively planning to keep some military troops in Kosovo 
in 2010, but will look closely at taskings that come out of 
the June NATO defense ministerial to see whether it needs to 
change its deployments. 
 
Nordic Defense Cooperation/High North 
------------------------------------- 
 
¶12. Nordic Defense Cooperation (NDC) is an initiative among 
the Nordic countries to enhance interoperability and capacity 
by pooling military resources and focusing on economies of 
scale.  The Swedes, Finns, and Norwegians all say that NDC 
will not detract from their current commitments to NATO -- 
either as full members or Partnership for Peace members -- 
but will instead improve NATO commitments by increasing 
interoperability with NATO.  Your interlocutors will likely 
raise NDC, as it is an important cost-saving initiative for 
the Ministry of Defense during the financial crisis.  There 
is not yet an official USG policy position on NDC, though the 
issue has been discussed within the USG interagency in 
positive terms.  Sweden does not border the Arctic Ocean and 
is therefore less focused on the High North than Norway, but 
it is interested in cooperating with its Nordic partners on 
security in the region. 
 
Energy Security 
--------------- 
 
¶13. Sweden views energy security and energy independence as a 
key priority during its EU Presidency.  Sweden shares USG 
concerns over Russia's ability (and willingness) to use the 
threat of shutting off gas supplies to Europe as a 
geopolitical tool.  Sweden believes that Europe should have 
access to diversified sources of energy and that the Baltic 
states must cooperate more closely with one another when it 
comes to energy.  Sweden is pleased that the EU and the 
Baltic countries will fund Swedlink, a 700-1,000 MW undersea 
electricity cable from Sweden to Lithuania that will 
distribute power to all three Baltic countries.  Swedish 
commentators have expressed concern about Russia's proposed 
Nordstream undersea gas pipeline to Germany that would bypass 
the Baltics and other Eastern European countries.  The 
government must soon decide whether to grant a permit 
allowing Nordstream to transit Swedish Exclusive Economic 
Zone waters. 
SILVERMAN