Sweden takes over the EU presidency today, promising to bring a touch of Nordic pragmatism and rigour to some of the toughest challenges facing the union.  Goodwill and expectations are unusually high as Goran Persson, the prime minister, settles into the rotating hot seat after disappointment at France's rocky stewardship, which ended last night to near universal relief.  Sweden joined the club in 1995, and this is the first time it has run the rotating presidency, always a demanding job for any small country but still a golden six-month opportunity to make an impression on union business.  France will be remembered for the Treaty of Nice, an ill-tempered and unambitious affair that just about agreed the long-overdue institutional reforms needed to allow the EU to take in up to 13 new members in the coming years. Enlargement is Mr Persson's biggest priority, not only because success is central to the future of the entire EU, but also because leading candidates such as Poland, Estonia and Latvia are situated in Sweden's own Baltic backyard.  And closely linked to this issue is the thorny question of relations with Russia and Ukraine, which will become the union's immediate neighbours when the first newcomers join.  "I find it hard to think that anything is more important for the enlargement process than that we have a good relationship between the EU and Russia," Mr Persson said recently.  The Swedish social democrat wants to quicken the glacial pace of negotiations and may even set a date for the first accessions, which France repeatedly refused to do.  But with concern growing in Germany and elsewhere about the cost of the project, and some of the toughest issues such as agriculture and aid funds still looming, it remains to be seen how much progress can actually be made.  Mr Persson has big ideas on the environment and employment. In Brussels, the Swedish environment commissioner, Margot Wallstrom, has established solid "green" credentials and the Gothenburg summit in June will be devoted to sustainable development.  Sweden also wants to use its presidency to help salvage a deal on climate change, after the collapse of the Hague conference over huge differences between the EU and US.  In March, at the Stockholm summit, leaders will review progress made since ambitious targets for social and employment policy were set in Lisbon last year.  Not surprisingly, the country that is the home to the telecoms giant Ericsson will be pushing for better opportunities to exploit new technologies and bring Europe up to enviable US levels of growth and job generation.  Transparency is a key concern - Sweden's instinctive openness has often brought clashes with more secretive member states. Its presidency website is already a model of clarity and accessibility.  Exuding probity and Scandinavian values, Mr Persson has pledged to work for a union "characterised by cost efficiency and budget restrictiveness" as well as "mainstreaming" gender equality - the theme of a ministerial strategy session later this month.  Other challenges include the difficult defence dossier, currently stuck on the crucial question of relations between the EU's nascent rapid reaction force and Nato, and specific difficulties with France and Turkey. As Sweden is a long-standing neutral which sat out the cold war, this is an especially intriguing and delicate mission.  Further afield, the crisis in the Middle East will be a test for Stockholm's ability to represent the union on the world stage, and an important time for the foreign policy supremo, Javier Solana, repeatedly upstaged by France.  North Korea, emerging from its long years as the Stalinist hermit kingdom, will be a preoccupation.  More widely, President George W Bush will be less of an enigma by the time Mr Persson greets him at the EU-US summit in June.  "Assuming the presidency for the first time is a proud moment for relative newcomers to the EU scene," commented the Brussels European Voice, widely read by Eurocrats. "It will be up to Sweden to restore faith in the current system and show that it can work in the way that it should."  Mr Persson has got that message loud and clear. "The EU is not only talk," he declared. "But it is also hard facts, delivery, a practical approach about politics that make a difference and change the daily lives of citizens."  *The former German chancellor Helmut Schmidt said in an interview published yesterday that the EU had achieved very little over the past decade, and criticised its expansion plans.  "With the sole exception of the euro, it has achieved nothing in the last 10 years," Mr Schmidt, 82, told the Tagesspiegel daily.  As Social Democrat chancellor from 1974 to 1982, Mr Schmidt, in partnership with French president Valery Giscard D'Estaing, helped forge the Exchange Rate Mechanism - the forerunner to European monetary union.  But in the outspoken interview, Mr Schmidt criticised the EU's latest steps aimed at accepting new members.  "The more members join, the harder it will be to change. Expectations are developing too quickly, internal rules too slowly," he warned. Classification Language: ENGLISH Subject: EUROPEAN UNION (91%); EU PRESIDENCY (78%); ENVIRONMENTAL DEPARTMENTS (77%); ENVIRONMENTAL TREATIES & AGREEMENTS (74%); PRIME MINISTERS (72%); JOB CREATION (70%); SUSTAINABILITY (61%); SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT (61%) Geographic: STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN (59%); BRUSSELS, BELGIUM (58%); SWEDEN (95%); EUROPEAN UNION MEMBER STATES (94%); FRANCE (90%); LATVIA (79%); EUROPE (79%); ESTONIA (78%); NETHERLANDS (78%); POLAND (73%); GERMANY (73%); BELGIUM (73%); UKRAINE (58%)