New French Prime Minister discusses domestic reforms and European presidency

New French Prime Minister discusses domestic reforms and European presidency

26 November 2007

On Friday 23 November, François Fillon, the Prime Minister of France, delivered a speech at the Stockholm School of Economics entitled "France: the Choice to Reform". The event was organized by the Stockholm School of Economics, the Stockholm Institute of Transition Economics (SITE) and the French Embassy of France in cooperation with the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) and the Swedish Institute of International Affairs (UI). M. Fillon said France faced urgent economic problems—the country, he said, had not had a balanced budget for the past 33 years and was highly indebted.

As a result, the new French Government planned major structural reforms. These would include economic reforms to boost growth, new rules for trade union representation, and modernization of the labour market.
M. Fillon frequently referred to the inspiration he had drawn from Swedish policies in the past decade

M. Fillon went on to outline some of the topics he had discussed earlier in the day with Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt, including priorities for the upcoming European Union presidencies of France (July–December 2008), the Czech Republic (January–June 2009) and Sweden (July–December 2009). M. Fillon said that the top priorities of the French EU Presidency would be climate change, migration flows and security—internal, external and, in particular, European defence

M. Fillon said that France had much to learn from Sweden on environmental matters. Plans were in place, he said, for closer cooperation between France and Sweden on renewable energy and other environmental technologies.