Secretary of State for European Affairs since last autumn, Christian Danielsson has spent most of his career between Brussels and Stockholm. Perfectly French-speaking, this seasoned diplomat was his country’s representative to the European Union, Director General in charge of EU enlargement and even the representative of the European Commission in Sweden. In the Conservative government of Ulf Kristersson, which replaced that of the Social Democrats last September, Danielsson immediately found himself on familiar ground. Since January 1, Sweden (10.5 million souls) has been at the head of the rotating presidency of the EU, for six months.
Also a candidate for NATO, which its Finnish neighbor has just joined, the country of Volvos, IKEA and Abba has set its priorities: security in Europe, global warming and… productivity, without which the democratic model European Union is in danger, according to the Swedes, of losing its attractiveness. Faced with this existential danger, “we must have a long-term economic vision”, affirms the Secretary of State, interviewed in Paris by L’Express.
L’Express: the voice of Sweden, which holds the rotating presidency of the European Union since January 1, is hardly heard. What have you accomplished for four months?
Christian Danielsson: The French news is so busy that the action of the Swedish EU Presidency may not have reached your ears (smiles), but we have done a lot. Our action is defined by this formula: “A safer, greener, freer Europe”. “Safer” refers to the European security that needs to be strengthened at a time when Russia is waging an illegitimate, unacceptable and brutal war in Ukraine.
“Our priority is European and transatlantic unity”
This aggression has very negative effects for Europe. At a time when the Ukrainians are defending Europe and its values, arms in hand, it is up to us to continue to organize economic, humanitarian, military and political support for their country. Our priority is to preserve European unity and transatlantic unity. This is the essential prerequisite that will allow Ukraine to win. As for our solidarity with Ukraine, it consists in politically supporting its aspiration to join the European Union.
In concrete terms, how does European Union aid materialize?
We support Ukraine in many ways, with humanitarian aid, financial aid, military aid. We have finalized our tenth sanctions package against Russia and we are preparing the eleventh, which concerns the shipment of ammunition to Ukraine.
Sanctions, do they work?
Yes. But we have to deal with a problem that has emerged over the last year: the circumvention of sanctions by a number of non-European countries, which allow Russia to illegally import equipment and components essential to their defense industry. . We are focusing on this subject in order to stop this phenomenon. This is why the European Union has appointed a “tsar” specially responsible for countering these circumventions: the Irishman David O’Sullivan, who previously served as EU ambassador to the United States.
Where are we on the question of international justice?
We are active in this area, too. The discussion goes beyond the framework of the EU. As president of the EU, Sweden plays an important role in coordinating and unifying the position of its members. It is a big job of diplomacy, which is not spectacular but real. A central question is: in which legal entity should we judge the “crime of aggression”?
Today, there is no court dedicated to this specific crime. The International Court in The Hague has jurisdiction over “war crimes” and “genocide”, but not over “crimes of aggression”. This concept defines the crimes committed by persons or States having prepared, carried out or promoted an armed conflict aimed at destabilizing one or more sovereign States. [NDLR : sont principalement visés : Vladimir Poutine, le ministre des Affaires étrangères Sergueï Lavrov et celui de la Défense, Sergueï Choïgou].
Where to judge the “crime of aggression”?
Either we create a new special court; or a hybrid system is established, as was the case in Cambodia with the special tribunal responsible for judging the atrocities of the Khmer Rouge (1975-1979). “Hybrid” means that Ukraine will have an active role in the legal process. The choice of the appropriate jurisdiction will be made fairly quickly. In the meantime, we have created an Investigation Center for the Crime of Aggression against Ukraine (ICPA), whose mission is to support field investigations in Ukraine that make it possible to establish the crimes committed without waiting for the end of the conflict. This center is housed in the building of Eurojust, the European Union Agency for judicial cooperation in criminal matters, in The Hague (Netherlands).
What happens to Russian assets frozen by decision of the European Union?
A debate is underway in Brussels on this subject. We are studying the possibility of using these funds for the reconstruction of Ukraine. The destruction is enormous: the World Bank estimates it at 450 billion dollars.
Let us return to the priorities of the Swedish Presidency. What is a “greener and freer” Europe?
A “greener” Europe refers to the fight against climate change. We are leading significant efforts to achieve the goal of the “Fit for 55” initiative, which aims to reduce greenhouse gases by 55% by 2030. This concerns regulations on renewable energies, the level of energy efficiency, fuels for boats and planes, not to mention infrastructure, in particular charging stations for electric vehicles. Finalizing the negotiations on these subjects requires a lot of work. We are almost there. Given Sweden’s expertise in this area, we were able to conduct the discussions effectively.
And what do you mean by a “freer Europe”?
It is above all about economic freedom. Our reasoning is as follows: we find that productivity and growth in Europe are significantly lower than those of the United States or our partners in Asia. It is worrying. If we are not able to close this gap quickly, the gap will continue to widen. This will have a negative impact on our prosperity but, above all, it will harm the attractiveness of our system. If our economic efficiency decreases, so does our prosperity… and poverty increases. The question of productivity is therefore an existential question for Europe.
This is why we need, not a deregulated economy, but a freer economy. Concretely, this means that we must improve our competitiveness by easing certain rules, encouraging investment, focusing on innovation, simplifying the creation of businesses, and strengthening the internal European market. We also need to unify our capital markets and facilitate the growth of our start-ups. How is it that in Europe, we are good at start-ups and bad at “scale-up”, that is to say in developing these same companies? We are working to answer this question.
Europe must also streamline its trade relations with the rest of the world, knowing that 90% of future global growth will come from Asia, Africa and Latin America. Another weakness concerns research and development. In Europe, we invest on average 2.3% of GDP in “R&D” (here, in Sweden, it’s 3%) while in the United States, it’s over 3% and in Southeast Asia, 3.8%. We know perfectly well that there is a correlation between R&D and growth.
For fifteen years, Europe has not had time to plan for the long term. On the contrary, it manages successive crises, like a firefighter repeatedly extinguishing fires: economic crisis of 2008-2009, migration crisis of 2015, Covid crisis in 2019, Ukrainian crisis today. Each time, the EU reacts and works well. But it is important to draw more distant perspectives in order to anticipate the future.