In the middle of the ongoing Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, the EU’s heads of state and government are meeting in Brussels for final discussions on the EU’s position on the climate change issue. It is time for this autumn’s and the Swedish Presidency’s final EU summit. Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt talks about what it feels like to soon be vacating the Presidency chair and how pleased he is about the progress made in some of the Presidency’s priority issues: the economic crisis and the Stockholm Programme. These issues are also on the Summit agenda.

Yesterday’s differences continued during the fourth day of negotiations at the Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen. Today’s negotiations on the Kyoto Protocol had to be adjourned.

The fifth day of the summit saw two contributions that will revitalise the negotiations. At the EU summit in Brussels, the EU heads of state and government agreed on what is known as fast start funding and, in Copenhagen, draft texts were presented.

Statement by Sweden on behalf of the European Union and its member states for the fifteenth session of the Conference of the Parties. Statement held by Anders Turesson, Swedish Chief climate negotiator. Stocktaking 12 December 2009

On Tuesday 15 December, Minister for Foreign Affairs Carl Bildt is to take part in a high-level panel discussion on climate and security in connection with the ongoing climate change conference in Copenhagen.

During today’s Agriculture and Fisheries Council, the EU fisheries ministers made a decision on fisheries in the North Sea in 2010. The decision includes a ban on the fishing of spiny dogfish and porbeagle.

When Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt meets the European Parliament in Strasbourg today to report on what the Swedish Presidency has achieved, the climate is on the agenda more than ever. With the climate negotiations in Copenhagen entering their final phase, Mr Reinfeldt said in his speech that the world needs binding commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Time is starting to run out for the climate negotiations. The Danish Presidency, led by Prime Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen, is now making major efforts to get negotiations started on the key issues.

The heads of state and government who met late yesterday evening to resolve some problems in the climate negotiations continued their meeting on Friday morning. US President Barack Obama joined the meeting at around 10.00 and intensive discussions are underway.