Sweden

STOCKHOLM (AP) — Sweden holds the European Union’s powerful presidency for the next six months, but there are concerns in the EU that a hard-line Swedish far right will hold back the Nordic nation in fulfilling its ambitions for the 27-nation bloc.

Occupying the rotating presidency allows a member nation to help set the EU’s tone and the agenda, a crucial task with the war in Ukraine still raging, migration issues putting several nations on edge and trade disputes creating a rift with Washington.

STOCKHOLM (AP) — Sweden holds the European Union’s powerful presidency for the next six months, but there are concerns in the EU that a hard-line Swedish far right will hold back the Nordic nation in fulfilling its ambitions for the 27-nation bloc.

Occupying the rotating presidency allows a member nation to help set the EU’s tone and the agenda, a crucial task with the war in Ukraine still raging, migration issues putting several nations on edge and trade disputes creating a rift with Washington.

STOCKHOLM, Jan 9 (NNN-XINHUA) – Sweden will be part of the European Sky Shield Initiative (ESSI) and participate in air policing over the Baltics, Prime Minister, Ulf Kristersson said.

The Scandinavian country, which last year decided to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), is also prepared to participate in air policing above the Black Sea and Iceland, Swedish Television (SVT) quoted Kristersson as saying, at an annual defence and security policy conference in Salen, some 430 km north-west of Stockholm.

08 Jan 2023; MEMO: Sweden is confident that Turkey will approve its application to join the NATO military alliance, but cannot fulfil all the conditions Ankara has set for its support, Sweden's prime minister said on Sunday, reports Reuters.

"Turkey both confirms that we have done what we said we would do, but they also say that they want things that we cannot or do not want to give them," Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson told a defence think-tank conference in Sweden.

STOCKHOLM, Jan. 8 (Xinhua) -- Sweden will be part of the European Sky Shield Initiative (ESSI) and participate in air policing over the Baltics, Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said on Sunday.

The Scandinavian country, which last year decided to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), is also prepared to participate in air policing above the Black Sea and Iceland, Swedish Television (SVT) quoted Kristersson as saying at an annual defense and security policy conference in Salen, some 430 km northwest of Stockholm.

STOCKHOLM, Dec. 12 (Xinhua) -- The European Union (EU)/European Economic Area (EEA) could face "significant pressure" on healthcare systems in the coming months, warned the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) on Monday.

In its latest risk assessment published on Monday, ECDC said the pressure would come from the "concurrent circulation" of the respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), influenza and SARS-CoV-2 viruses.

STOCKHOLM, December 5. /TASS/: Finland has no intention of deploying NATO nuclear weapons on its territory upon its accession to the alliance, Foreign Minister Pekka Haavisto said at a news conference on Monday.

"We realize that NATO is an alliance that possesses nuclear weapons, but those are under the control of the United States, which does not wish to proliferate them elsewhere," he said. "We are not asking for nuclear weapons and nobody’s offering us any," Finland’s top diplomat said.

04 Dec 2022; MEMO: Sweden has extradited a member of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) to Turkiye, as part of Stockholm's efforts to gain Ankara's approval for accession into the NATO alliance.

According to media reports, the man was previously sentenced to over six years imprisonment in Turkiye for his membership in the PKK, an armed Kurdish separatist group also designated as a terrorist organisation by the United States and the European Union.

STOCKHOLM, Nov. 28 (Xinhua) -- More than 700 shootings have occurred in the vicinity of Swedish schools in the last three years, Swedish Television (SVT) reported on Monday.

In that period, 196,000 children aged between 7 and 16 attend a school where one or several shootings have been recorded within 500 meters of the school premises, SVT said citing an analysis published by statistics company Infostat.

STOCKHOLM (AP) — Sweden’s central bank followed other central banks in undertaking a big increase to its key interest rate to combat inflation, saying Thursday that high prices are undermining people’s purchasing power and making it tough for households and companies to plan their finances.

Riksbanken said the hike of three-quarters of a percentage point pushes the key rate to 2.5% — the highest in 14 years, according to Swedish news agency TT — and is meant “to bring down inflation and safeguard the inflation target.”