photo - EPA
The Danish term commences at a critical time for the Euro zone, owing to the financial crisis, and Denmark has pledged that unity is among its central goals.
“We are going through the biggest crisis of recent times, and all of our actions matter,” minister for European affairs Nicolai Wammen said at a press conference in Brussels outlining Denmark's priorities, just before the Christmas break.
Although neither Denmark nor Poland has adopted the single currency as of yet, the two nations were among nine non-Euro countries to agree to support a new pact on financial responsibility for the crisis in early December.
The United Kingdom refused to back the pact and Sweden, Hungary and the Czech Republic have withheld their signatures for the time being.
“Great Britain must decide its own course, but it’s no secret that we want to be a bridge over troubled waters, and we would not like to see the English Channel be wider in scope, ” Wammen said.
Besides attempting to shore up rifts, Denmark also aims to make green issues a priority, including a fresh look at renewable energies.
“Every euro spent on energy efficiency will go to ensuring European jobs," said Danish Climate Minister Martin Lidegaard at the Brussels conference.
“Every euro spent on oil imports will go out of Europe. This makes the green agenda one of the most important in Europe's future cooperation.”
Denmark, already a world leader in wind energy – a fifth of its power comes from this sector – hopes to cut carbon emissions in Europe.
Poland, which relies heavily on coal as an energy source, sparked some controversy at the beginning of its EU presidency, by blocking a target to reduce EU carbon emissions to 25 percent by 2020, maintaining the level at 20 percent.
However, Poland's presidency as a whole was assessed positively on the continent.
“You will be a tough act to follow,” said President of the EC, Jose Barroso during his summing up of the presidency in mid-December, noting that Poland had shown “great professionalism and enthusiasm,” under “difficult circumstances.”
Speaking from the Polish side after the Danes took over on Sunday, Pior Stachanczyk, Secretary of State in the Ministry of Internal Affairs, said that “we have had very good reviews of what we managed to achieve.”
Stachanczyk highlighted that the goal of a common EU response to asylum seekers was closer, thanks to Polish mediation.
Likewise, he declared that a further success lay in the easing of border controls between the EU zone and the Russian oblast (administrative zone) of Kaliningrad.
He noted that “the only thing that was beyond our capabilities was convincing the Dutch to extend the border-free travel Schengen zone to Romania and Bulgaria.” (nh/pg)
source: PAP/Reuters