Second Presidency Essay

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Although the presidency is a great opportunity to influence European policies, it is also a big challenge, and during the second Presidency in 2006 Finland concentrated on “tackling Europe’s current challenges such as security, globalisation, demographic change and maintaining economic welfare” (Committee of the Regions 2006, 4). The Finnish government knew that the Presidency would be an opportunity for them to take the European agenda forward as smoothly and efficiently as possible in order to deliver visible results and to be able to use the state as a self-interested mediator strategy successfully. At the start of the 2006 Presidency, Finnish Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen commented on the Finnish Presidency of the European Union that alongside the other key aspects, “the environment agenda will also be demanding during our Presidency. …show more content…

However, in reviewing the 2006 Finnish Presidency, although climate change was made into one of its political priorities, it did not advance any of the crucial domestic or international debates on the matter. EU climate policy under the Finnish Presidency was “at best stationary, leaving all the hot items on the agenda for the Germans” (European Environmental Bureau 2007, 5) in their succeeding Presidency. For such an important issue such as the many different environmental policies that received considerable attention during the previous six months, no movement is simply not enough. The Finnish Presidency started with an ambitious list of objectives, with the aim to have them finalised by the end of the year. Moreover, as several issues were slowed down due to delays

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