Fredrik Reinfeldt - Foreign Policy

Foreign Policy

The Moderate Party has a pro-European Union policy stance—including support for exchanging the Swedish krona for the euro—and also supports Sweden joining NATO. As one of Europe's new conservative leaders, Reinfeldt is seen as an important ally of the United States. His party is a member of the conservative International Democrat Union, together with the Republican Party in the United States and the British Conservative Party, even though its policies are somewhat more liberal than these. During the 2000 United States presidential election, Reinfeldt visited the United States to support the campaign of George W. Bush. Prior to the 2004 United States presidential election, Reinfeldt again expressed his support for Bush. In an interview with the newspaper Stockholm City on 8 March 2004, Reinfeldt said that he preferred Bush over the Democratic Party contender John Kerry, and in a poll conducted by the newspaper Svenska Dagbladet in April 2004, Reinfeldt like a large majority of his party favoured Bush over Kerry.

Despite this, he has compared his government's actions and policies to those of Bill Clinton's administration, and supported Barack Obama in the 2008 United States presidential election.

Reinfeldt visited Washington, D.C. on 15 May 2007, meeting with President Bush. His trip also included meetings with others, including United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. This is his first visit to the United States since becoming Prime Minister in 2006. Bush and Reinfeldt mostly discussed climate change and free trade, focusing on the Doha Round. He visited President Barack Obama at first the White House and then in the Metropolitan Museum of Art on 23 September 2009.

Reinfeldt was President of the European Council from 1 July to 1 December 2009. The signing of the Treaty of Lisbon was Reinfeldt's role as President of the Council, which also occurred on 13 December 2009. Reinfeldt was also responsible in this role to put EU's efforts to get into a binding agreement at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen in 2009 but this did not succeed.