Ewa Björling attends the Fashion Gala
The Fashion Gala and prize giving ceremony took place yesterday at Stockholm City Hall. Minister for Trade Ewa Björling was there to present the Fashion Export Prize, which was awarded to Nudie Jeans and received by the Managing Director Palle Stenberg.
Swedish election monitors to Ukraine
The Government decided today to send five election monitors, ten election observers and one statistician to Ukraine ahead of the presidential election on 17 January 2010.
Foreign affairs, defence, development cooperation and EU affairs ministers to Council meeting
The items for discussion are many and varied when the EU countries' ministers for foreign affairs, defence, development cooperation and EU affairs gather for a joint meeting in the General Affairs and External Relations Council on 16-17 November in Brussels.
The EU and ECOWAS join in the defence of democratic values in West Africa
A ministerial troika meeting took place 11 November between the EU and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) in Abuja, Nigeria. The meeting was co-chaired by the EU Presidency, represented by Mr Frank Belfrage, State Secretary for Foreign Affairs in Sweden, and Ambassador Bagudu M. Hirse, Minister of State at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Nigeria.
Minister for Trade Ewa Björling met WCO Secretary General Kunio Mikuriya
Minister for Trade Ewa Björling today met with World Customs Organisation (WCO) Secretary General Kunio Mikuriya. The WCO is an intergovernmental organisation focusing on customs matters; it has 175 members that process approximately 98 per cent of world trade.
Mikuriya is in Stockholm for the first time in his capacity as Secretary General. He met with the Minister for Trade to discuss WCO efforts to modernise and improve customs administrations worldwide, not least in the developing countries. Trade facilitation and capacity building are initiatives that Sweden supports.
Sweden to be reviewed by UN Human Rights Council
In 2006 the UN General Assembly decided that, every four years, the then recently established Human Rights Council in Geneva would undertake a review of the fulfilment by each Member State of its human rights obligations through Universal Periodic Reviews (UPR). Through this procedure the General Assembly has deprived States the right to in any way avoid a review.
"In fine rooms and with his field boots on"
There are more sides to working as a diplomat than is generally thought. This year's winner of the Jonas Weiss Grant, Andreas Tuvesson, who is in charge of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs Section Office in Tbilisi in Georgia, is an example of a diplomat with broad proficiency who is very much at home in the field.
Minister for Foreign Affairs Carl Bildt to visit Afghanistan
Minister for Foreign Affairs Carl Bildt will arrive in Kabul today for a two-day visit.
Ministers launch EU-Indonesia Human Rights Dialogue
Indonesian Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa and Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt, representing the Swedish Presidency of the European Union, formally inaugurated a new human rights dialogue between the European Union and Indonesia in Jakarta on Monday.
Foreign ministers meeting between the EU and Indonesia
Today, 9 November, a meeting of foreign ministers took place in Jakarta between the EU and Indonesia. The meeting was hosted by Indonesia's new Minister of Foreign Affairs, Dr Marty Natalegawa. The EU Troika delegation was headed by Sweden's Minister for Foreign Affairs Carl Bildt.
