Another six months has elapsed and the permanent catastrophe that was the EU Presidency under the Czech Republic has finally ended. We now officially have a President whose government is not in danger of collapsing during his tenure. Brussels is breathing a sigh of relief tonight.

And Sweden's agenda is indeed a vast improvement on the last one, which was more or less reduced to public relations damage control once Mirek Topolánek's government actually failed: the new President Fredrik Reinfeld has vowed to tackle climate change and the economic crisis, two laudable and pressing missions.

But it's worth noting that the rotating EU presidency is schizophrenic by nature and the nuttiness of the previous president did little to actually worsen what is already a deep schism within Europe: the one that exists between countries who developed their economies from their own natural resources (and have large agricultural components even today) and those who developed their economies through trade and commerce.

France, Spain, Italy and to some extent Germany fall solidly within the former category. So not surprisingly, they support a highly regulated system of commerce which protects often fragile local economies (yes, in France we can buy milk from 15 cow farms in the Alps).

The Netherlands, Sweden and the UK developed as trade empires, and they are today all strong supporters of economically liberal policies (destroying trade barriers, opening up markets globally and allowing markets to regulate themselves).

So even though we in Europe are happy to see a new president, he might try and promote an economic agenda sure to frustrate large swaths of Europe, and the endless tug-of-war, a struggle that often reduces the EU Presidency to six-month long exercise in conflicted and unfinished policies, will continue.