Is there a Swedish policy position in Internet Governance Forum?

Today the last round of preparations before the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) 2009 in Sharm El Sheik is about to begin. Historically, Sweden was associated with the view of former vice president to ICANN - former Prime Minister and present Minister of Foreign Affairs - Mr Carl Bildt. Nowdays, the participation in IGF is under the auspiece of the Minister of communication, Ms Åsa Torstensson.

So what is the Swedish position in Internet Governance today? Well, it is a complex set of issues, so the shortest way to put it is...void. Internet Governance was until quite recently hardly at all of political interest for the Swedish government. It hadn't been since the WSIS process during 2003 and 2005 in Tunis, where Sweden statements ended in a hasty ambiguity.
However, Sweden is president in the European union, so several pairs of eyes will probably turn towards the swedish delegation, and maybe expecting leadership. Sweden can't avoid a statement in the the area of Internet governance for too long, so at least a draft to a european policy will probably be developed during the last preparatory meeting in Geneva today and tomorrow. It is customary that the EU presidency gather initiative for a written statement read out loud in UN prepartory meeting. This statement is supposed to be a coherent Internet Governance policy for all of the union. It is unfortunately also custom that one or two european union member states can't resist the urge to give their (personal) view of what should be the european policy.

And by the way, What is a specifically Swedish, view in all this? What - or rather Who- does a national policy actually represent? ITU:ers have a convenient existence, since they send representatives from Governement, sitting behind the country flag and the country name sign, speaking as representatives for a country. In a model with transparency in decision and multistakeholder representation, there is extra need for integrity among policymakers, since the risk for policy capture is apparent in such environments. Such capture would severely damage the credibility of this government.

In Februari 2008, I gave Swedens view on the so called JPA midterm review, i.e. ICANNs relation to US Government (http://www.ntia.doc.gov/ntiahome/domainname/jpacomments2007/jpacomment_095.pdf) . In short, this statement issued that an NGO like ICANN is the way to go when it comes to Internet governance, but that we in the long run need a global consensus on Internet Governance, and especially the management of strategical infrastructure. In my view, this global consensus also presuppose acceptance from developing states like Brazil, or India. When this is said, I also understand that there is a long way to go for that consensus to appear.