The focus of last week's informal council in Jönköping, Sweden, was to provide solutions that serve the short-term aims of safeguarding employment during the economic crisis.
Cristina Husmark Pehrsson, Swedish minister for social security, and Sven Otto Littorin (employment) announced they were "pleased that we have a consensus".
"By taking active measures, we can tackle labour market exclusion and increase labour force participation to better face the challenge of an ageing population," they said.
Sweden's aim is to adopt, before its presidency mandate ends in January 2010, conclusions on the new EU strategy for growth and employment for the next 10 years - the next Lisbon Strategy.
Conny Reuter, president of the Social Platform, a network of social NGOs which participated in the Jönköping meetings, was very encouraged by the Swedish Presidency's initiative, saying the Swedes were "paying a lot of attention to the social dimension".
Topics such as social cohesion, solidarity and active inclusion had not been sufficiently prioritised during the preceding Czech EU Presidency, he said.
A Lisbon Agenda 'à la suédoise'
Indeed, it appears that the Swedes aspire to a new Lisbon Agenda very much in their own image. The presidency hailed the "broad consensus that labour market inclusion can be increased by using tools such as the common principles of flexicurity and active inclusion strategies as well as preparing for the jobs and skills of the future, including Life-Long Learning strategies".
These measures are, as one observer told EurActiv, "all characteristic of the Swedish approach".
Conny Reuter concurred, emphasising that such topics would form the backbone of Swedish attempts to cast EU policy along Nordic lines.
In the area of gender equality, where Sweden is an acknowledged world leader, the presidency is also pushing for the EU's strategies to develop à la suédoise.
In this regard, Sweden has pledged to assess the transposition of the UN action plan for gender equality (the Beijing Platform for Action) in EU member states. In particular, the presidency said it "will work for a decision to be taken on two draft directives": one concerning the equal treatment of self-employed women and men, and one concerning measures to improve health and safety in the workplace for workers who are pregnant, have recently given birth or are breastfeeding.
While praising their ambitions, Conny Reuter cautioned that while the Swedes may succeed in bringing progressive social legislation to the EU institutional level, they could struggle to improve on past presidencies in transposing such EU initiatives to national level.
"It's like the Anti-discrimination Directive," he said. "It exists at the EU level but in reality, is it not translated into policies in all the member states."
Concluding on a hopeful note, Reuter argued that "with a new European Parliament, a new Commission and - hopefully - the Lisbon Treaty coming into force during their presidency, the door is open for the Swedes to introduce a new paradigm for the renewed Lisbon Agenda".
