New Policy for a New Era?

For those interested in my approach to the challenges we are facing in the world today, it might be interesting to read the speech I gave to the Swedish Institute for International Affairs on December 19th.

The text can be found on the Ministry website on my own old one and on the site of the Institute.

Those interested can there also access the video version of the event.

The speech has been fairly widely commented upon in Sweden, although mostly in general appreciative terms without going too much into the substance.

But it does set out both my vision and my priorities. It combines optimism about the possibilities of globalisation with pessimism concerning the dark clouds gathering on the more immediate horizons of the neighbourhood of Europe.

The Future of This Blog?

As has been noted, this blog has gone inactive since I was asked to serve as Foreign Minister of Sweden in early October.

It is not easy to combine blogging with having an official position. Your worlds are scrutinzed in a somewhat different way - as indeed they should be.

It's really the difference between being an observer of politics and an active participant in some of the same events. And the two roles are very different, with blogging fitting better with the first than with the second of these two functions.

Nevertheless, the web is an important tool also of the increasingly important public diplomacy.

The Ministry for Foreign Affairs does maintain it's somewhat dull site in Swedish as well as another one in English, although I have to admit that they don't really meet the standards that must be achieved these days. Work is underway to improve them, although government bureucracies don't really operate with the speed of the light.

To which extent I will have the possibility of continuing to post on this or another blog now and then remains to be seen, but since I noted that there are hundreds of visitors each day in spite of the blog being virtually "dead" since months back I just wanted to note the state of affairs.

We'll see.

A new year might bring new opportunities also in this respect.