Sweden has announced the return of civilian military service: it aims to reach 2030 with ten thousand new agents

Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson announced on Monday that he will reinstate civilian military service in that country, with the goal of reaching 10,000 new officers by 2030, an issue that the Government deemed it “very urgent” in the context of the war that resulted from the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

“The government believes that there is an urgent need to prepare the civil service activation. The Social Protection and Preparedness Authority (MSB) will be in charge of carrying out the preparations for the civil service activation for the municipal rescue services,” Kristersson detailed in a statement

As anticipated, Thursday there will be a conference to clarify the provision with the Swedish Defense Minister, Pal Jonson, and the head of that country’s Civil Protection, Carl-Oskar Bohlin, who remarked that the new government has taken office” in a difficult time” of crisis from the war of Ukraine.

“We will bring Sweden to NATO and we assumed the presidency of the EU just over a week ago. It will be a presidency marked by war and crisis,” he said at a press conference in which he explained that the restoration of the civil law service it is a “very urgent matter” for the government.

For his part, Defense Minister Pal Johnson said Stockholm would strengthen defense cooperation with Washington.

“We recently started negotiations on this with the United States. We are moving forward from being close partners to allies‘ he said, according to the Dagens Nyheter newspaper.

The pact is called the Defense Cooperation Agreement (DCA) and will regulate the legal status of US soldiers in Sweden, as well as other measures, such as investments in infrastructure or the stockpiling of defense equipment.

The US has similar DCA agreements with several countries. Finland also announced in September its intention to start the process.

The Swedish government has specified that the agreement will allow both countries to “deepen even further” the “bilateral cooperation in matters of security and defense, strengthen cooperation as allies in NATO and help strengthen transatlantic security and stability”. .

“The security situation in Europe has changed dramatically with Russia’s unprovoked aggression against Ukraine. The new deterioration of the security situation means that Sweden must be able to act quickly on a complex security development, individually and together with others,” it was officially stated.

Application for NATO membership

Sweden, like Finland, has broken with decades of military non-alignment and last year applied to join the Atlantic Alliance in response to Russia’s offensive in Ukraine in February.

However, for the moment, Turkey has refused to ratify its applications for NATO membership, accusing both countries of offering refuge to Kurdish groups, which it considers “terrorists”.

Ankara has thus asked Stockholm for the extradition of several Turkish citizens it accuses of “terrorism” or of having participated in the failed 2016 coup against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

“I hope (entry will happen in 2023), but I don’t guarantee the exact date because it is, of course, a sovereign decision of the Turkish Parliament and the Hungarian Parliament, which have not yet ratified the agreement,” he said. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg last weekend.

With information from agencies.

IS