Crises and challenges facing the coalition gov't.

Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt is back home after his reported successful state visits to China and Japan where he laid the ground for Sweden's presidency of the European Union in autumn 2009. Topping the list of his agenda was a program for achieving the environmental goal of reducing carbon dioxide emission.

Reinfeldt's high diplomatic profile is further highlighted when Sweden hosts an international conference on Iraq at the end of this month. The conference which will be attended by some 80 delegates from different countries and will tackle the problem of Iraq's reconstruction and democratization. U.S. Foreign Minister Condoleeza Rice who will be attending will be received by the Swedish Prime Minister, who will inform her that Sweden has taken a large number of Iraqi asylum-seekers, much more than USA and EU combined.

It is Sweden's generous reception of Iraqi refugees that made it a suitable conference venue for the international meeting. For a small country that had nothing to do with the decision to go to war in Iraq, Sweden has indeed gone out of its way to be accommodating to the Iraqis. The chairmanship of the conference will be held by UN and the Iraqi government. An important topic of discussion will be the appropriation and use of Iraq's oil resources.

While the Swedish government is earning merits in diplomacy and humanitarian assistance, there are rumblings in the homefront that hits the basic humanitarian values of a democratic society. These three issues, outlined in Dagen Nyheter's editorial of May 17, are occuring simultaneously. The first concerns the near bankrupt defense establishment which questions seriously the credibility and ability of the Swedish defense to perform its role domestically and internationally. The second, is the inability of the country's justice system to prosecute an increasing number of cases due to lack of funds. As the cliche goes, " Justice delayed is justice denied." The third is the situation of refugees without legal documents who have no access to medical care and hospitalization.

The burden of solving these crises, as well as of facing challenges rests upon the Coalition government, and not upon any single political party in power. One reported reason why refugees in hiding are not given access to medical care is the apprehension that they will find stronger reasons to stay. #