Chancellor Olaf Soltz today expressed their confidence that all its Member States NATO they will complete “very quickly” the process of confirming their affiliation Sweden And her Finland, and for her part, the Prime Minister of Sweden, Magdalena Andersson, assured that her country would comply with the terms of the relevant memorandum, which she signed with Turkey. With regard to the energy crisis, the leaders of the two countries said they were confident that EU member states would show solidarity in the event of a shortage.

“I am sure that now (ratification) will happen very quickly (…) The seven countries that have not ratified membership will do so soon,” Mr. Soltz said during a joint press conference with Ms. Anderson in Stockholm . , he did not want to name a specific date. “We will comply with the memorandum reached by us with Turkey on our country’s accession to NATO,” the Prime Minister of Sweden assured for her part. However, the two leaders called the decision of Sweden and Finland to join the Alliance “historic”. “This is a step in the right direction and will strengthen the Alliance on its northern borders. This is important because you cannot be sure that everything will remain as it is, Russia is trying to redraw the borders,” Olaf Solz said and confirmed the commitment of NATO countries to continue supporting Ukraine militarily.

Asked if Ukrainian forces could use German and Swedish weapons to retake Crimea, the two leaders were unanimous. “The weapons provided are for Ukraine to defend its territory,” Mr. Soltz said, only for Ms. Anderson to agree, noting that the weapons “could be used to defend territories.” The EU condemned the annexation of Crimea and did not recognize the region as Russian territory, but recently Dmitry Medvedev, deputy chairman of Russia’s National Security Council, called Crimea a “red line.”

On the energy issue, Olaf Soltz and McDalena Andersson stressed the importance of enhancing bilateral cooperation in energy transition efforts and specifically mentioned the development of electrification and battery production. The two leaders visited the Scania plant, now a subsidiary of Volkswagen, earlier today and were briefed on ideas for environmentally friendly methods to electrify heavy vehicles.

However, when asked about the use of nuclear energy, Olaf Soltz declined to answer whether the production of electricity from nuclear power plants should be increased again. “Each country will make its own decisions. Germany will follow the path of massive expansion of the use of renewable energy sources. We have already stepped up the pace for this to guarantee the energy security of the country,” he said and stressed the need to limit dependence on fossil fuels in any case. “The current political situation makes this goal even more urgent,” he added, while appearing confident that in the event of problems with energy supply, the EU countries will support each other. “At present, Germany produces electricity from natural gas, which is in dire need of neighboring EU countries,” he said revealingly. Earlier in an interview with the Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter, Mr. Soltz stressed that even if the energy balance is a national issue for each country, cooperation between countries is absolutely necessary. “The federal government is responsible not only for Germany’s electricity supply, but also for its neighbors,” he said. In the coming days, the results of “stress tests” conducted between energy companies will be available, and based on them, the federal government will decide on its next steps.

On the other hand, Magdalena Andersson said that Sweden wants to use nuclear energy in the long term, but does not want, she clarified, to build new stations.

^{Source: APE-MEB}