Ministry of Defence

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A bilateral meeting via video link was held on 16 November between Minister for Defence Peter Hultqvist and Portugal’s Minister of National Defence João Gomes Cravinho. The agenda included regional security, the Sahel and bilateral cooperation.

In the government bill ‘Totalförsvaret 2021–2025’ (Total Defence 2021–2025), the Government is proposing a substantial increase of capabilities in both military and civilian defence. The bill includes proposals on a new and expanded war organisation with reinforcements in all branches and functions of defence, as well as the re-establishment of five regiments and one air wing. The bill also includes substantial investment in military equipment, reinforcements of cyber defence, ammunition and foreign intelligence capabilities, and a doubling of basic-training volumes. Within the civilian defence, resilience is strengthened in several important societal functions.

On Wednesday 14 October, Minister for Defence Peter Hultqvist received the Commander of NATO’s Allied Joint Force Command Brunssum, General Jörg Vollmer, at the Ministry of Defence.

On September 25, 2020, the Ministers of Defence of Belgium, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom met via videoconference, in the third annual European Intervention Initiative (EI2) meeting.

The Swedish government has proposed to parliament that the defence sector should be allocated an additional SEK 5 billion in 2021.

On 8 September, the Riksdag decided to grant the Government greater rights to give and receive operational military support within the framework of defence cooperation between Sweden and Finland. The Government will be able to take decisions on matters such as assisting Finland militarily to prevent violations of Finnish territory, and receiving military support from Finland to prevent violations of Swedish territory or respond to an armed attack against Sweden. Decisions to assist Finland militarily to respond to an armed attack against Finland must still be approved by the Riksdag.

Minister for Defence Peter Hultqvist has taken part in a multilateral video meeting on 2 September concerning support to the countries in the Sahel region of Africa. The meeting was led by the French Minister for the Armed Forces, Florence Parly, and attended by defence ministers from about ten nations, as well as representatives from the European Union, the United Nations and the United States. The discussions focused mainly on the recent political developments in Mali.

Minister for Defence Peter Hultqvist visited Poland on 14–15 August on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the Polish Armed Forces Day.