Foreign Policy

Sweden recognized Palestine as a country today. You can say a lot about this, both for and against this decision. I have been judged by an Israeli judge on a dog show once, other than that, I have not much experience of either Israel or Palestine. There is, however, one argument against the recognition that I do not like. This is the argument that when Sweden recognized Palestine ahead of any other EU country, we breach the unity of EU foreign policy.

I believe the EU should be a cooperation between independent countries, just like the kennel clubs of these countries are independent, but cooperate through FCI. If Sweden is an independent country cooperating with other independent countries in the EU, independent foreign policy must be the norm. Unity in foreign policy is a good thing, but not for unity in itself. Unity in foreign policy, when the policy is good and all the countries are still independent, is good. I would not want Sweden to join other EU countries on bad foreign policy just for the sake of unity.

So, the recognition of Palestine might be a bad thing, it might be too early, it might be in breach of some rules of international law. These are valid reasons for critique of the decision. Not working in unity with the other EU countries is, in my mind, not a valid objection.