Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt has said that managing the financial crisis and unemployment and addressing climate change will be the two main priorities of the Swedish Presidency which begins on July 1st this year.

He made the remark at a press conference in Rosenbad, the Swedish government headquarter in Stockholm on Tuesday, briefing Swedish and foreign journalists about priorities for Swedish EU presidency.

The other issue they like to address will be the cooperation in justice and home affairs in the EU.
He said to counter financial crisis and economic recession, Europe needs in the short term proactive labor market policies in order to create more jobs and prevent long term unemployment. And the long term policy is to reform, adapt and modernize by strengthening its innovation capacity and moving towards a low-carbon economy.

He said he will push a review of the EU's Lisbon Strategy so that a new Lisbon Strategy can be adopted in 2010.

In combating climate change, he hopes that an international climate agreement will be achieved in Copenhagen.

He said that both industrialized countries and some developing countries should increase their efforts in reducing green house gas emission.

'As we know that climate change is going on and ice is melting faster, thus more responsibility is needed.'
Reinfeldt said that the EU countries have reached an agreement to reduce emission by 30% by 2020. Now they need the US, China, India, Russia, Brazil, South Africa and Ukraine to join the efforts.

Commenting on China's efforts in improving energy efficiency by 20%, Prime Minister Reinfeldt said that 'we see some of the targets in China are done, but we also have the experience that you can decouple growth and green house emission by introducing more renewable energy.'

He said he will be engaged in how to introduce more renewable energy in China, further increase the efficiency in usage of energy and maybe reduce the use of coal or use new technology for usage of coal.
Talking about his expectation from China, Reinfeldt said,

"We are not asking China to have its own answer, we are asking China to be part of this global answer while industrialized countries fulfill their own parts," said Reinfeldt.

On Tuesday afternoon, Justice Minister briefed about cooperation in justice and home affairs among EU countries. The main issues concern procedure rights in criminal case, translation, transfer of criminals, people trafficking and information exchanges.

By Xuefei Chen, People's Daily Online, Stockholm.