Sweden takes over European Union presidency

Winning support for a new international agreement on curbing global warming will be the most important task during Sweden's six-month European Union presidency, the head of the EU's executive commission said Wednesday.

European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso told Swedish Radio the critical event will be the U.N. climate conference in Copenhagen scheduled for December. The conference will seek to reach a new global deal to replace the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012.

The Scandinavian country, which like the Czech Republic is not a member of the eurozone, nonetheless aims to restore confidence in the financial markets by establishing "a European body to supervise stability".

Sweden also plans to "lay the foundations for a new growth and employment strategy" to help the millions of unemployed Europeans, according to its work programme.

Other priorities include EU enlargement, of which Sweden is a fierce advocate, improving European judicial cooperation, and developing a strategy to improve the Baltic Sea's marine environment and the region's growth potential.

Analysts are hailing the new Swedish presidency of the European Union as bringing stability to the 27-member bloc in troubled times. The previous Czech presidency was a particularly rocky one, marked by the collapse of Prague's government and internal power divisions - with Czech President Vaclav Klaus a prominent Euroskeptic.