Försvarsminister Peter Hultqvist vid Atlantic Councils konferens Securing Northern Europe, 12 december, regeringen.se

…The cooperation between Sweden and Finland holds a special place in both our countries’ security and defence policies. It aims at increasing effect and efficiency through combined use of resources, increased interoperability and a closer dialogue on common challenges. The cooperation also includes planning for scenarios beyond peace time. Such planning and preparations shall be complementary to, but separate from, national operational planning in the two countries. This creates the possibility to, after nessecary national decisions, act jointly and thereby contributing to a higher threshold for conflicts in our vicinity….

Sweden have a long-standing bilateral defence cooperation with the United States, which was consolidated last year through our Statement of Intent (SOI). The SOI covers five broad areas: Interoperability, Training and Exercises, Armament, Research and Development and Multinational Operations. We have taken important new steps both at the political and at the military level…

EU is Sweden’s most important foreign policy arena. Sweden is actively seeking to strengthen the Common Security and Defence Policy while keeping its intragovernmental character. This is important when it comes to the Permanent Structured Cooperation, PESCO, as well as the European Defence Industrial Development Programme. From a Swedish point of view it’s important that we all have agreed upon the principle that the programmes should be member state driven…

What we do within the Common Security and Defence Policy must add value for the member states and support European solidarity.

The EU and NATO are two of the most important institutions constituting the West as we know it. They both play important roles in meeting today’s security challenges in Europe and elsewhere. Sweden has a strong interest in an effective, complementarily and results-oriented strategic partnership between these organisations.

The importance of Sweden’s partnership with NATO has grown as a result of the negative development in our close vicinity. Political dialogue on common security challenges and how to counter them is essential and we are looking to further strengthen our cooperation with NATO in regional crisis. Läs talet