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MILITARY

Denmark to increase military presence in Arctic: minister

Denmark will increase the presence of its military in the Arctic region in coming years, Minister of Defence Trine Bramsen has said.

Published: 20 August 2019 15:25 CEST
Denmark to increase military presence in Arctic: minister
File photo: Liselotte Sabroe / Ritzau Scanpix

The Arctic region is one of five key areas for Denmark in relation to defence, the minister said in an interview with Jyllands-Posten.

“With ice melting due to climate change, many new challenges are taking place and new threats are emerging in the north,” Bramsen said.

“The presence of the military in the Arctic will be strengthened in the coming years in reaction to these developments, to ensure stability and security,” she added.

Exact measurements must initially be discussed by parliament’s defence committee, but the minister said one option would be to use some of the 1.5 billion kroner added to the defence budget in January this year.

“It is crucial that the military is able to ensure security and safety across the Kingdom,” Bramsen said.

In addition to the Arctic, Denmark’s military has four other key areas, the minister said.

Those include better defence against cyber-attacks; doing more for Denmark’s veterans and ongoing recruitment; as well as contribution to the national focus on converting to green energy, given the large number of aircraft, ships, buildings and vehicles owned by the military.

READ ALSO: The Local speaks to Danish veterans prior to Invictus Games

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NATO

Erdogan links Swedish Nato approval to Turkish EU membership

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Monday he would back Sweden's Nato candidacy if the European Union resumes long-stalled membership talks with Ankara.

Published: 10 July 2023 12:35 CEST
Erdogan links Swedish Nato approval to Turkish EU membership

“First, open the way to Turkey’s membership of the European Union, and then we will open it for Sweden, just as we had opened it for Finland,” Erdogan told a televised media appearance, before departing for the NATO summit in Lithuania.

Erdogan said “this is what I told” US President Joe Biden when the two leaders spoke by phone on Sunday.

Turkey first applied to be a member of the European Economic Community — a predecessor to the EU — in 1987. It became an EU candidate country in 1999 and formally launched membership negotiations with the bloc in 2005.

The talks stalled in 2016 over European concerns about Turkish human rights violations.

“I would like to underline one reality. Turkey has been waiting at the EU’s front door for 50 years,” Erdogan said. “Almost all the NATO members are EU members. I now am addressing these countries, which are making Turkey wait for more than 50 years, and I will address them again in Vilnius.”

Sweden’s prime minister, Ulf Kristersson, is due to meet Erdogan at 5pm on Monday in a last ditch attempt to win approval for the country’s Nato bid ahead of Nato’s summit in Vilnius on July 11th and 12th. 

Turkey has previously explained its refusal to back Swedish membership as motivated by the country’s harbouring of people connected to the PKK, a Kurdish terrorist group, and the Gülen movement, who Erdogan blames for an attempted coup in 2016. 

More recently, he has criticised Sweden’s willingness to allow pro-Kurdish groups to protest in Swedish cities and allow anti-Islamic protesters to burn copies of the Quran, the holy book of Islam.

In a sign of the likely reaction of counties which are members both of Nato and the EU, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said that the two issues should not be connected. 

“Sweden meets all the requirements for Nato membership,” Scholz told reporters in Berlin. “The other question is one that is not connected with it and that is why I do not think it should be seen as a connected issue.”

Malena Britz, Associate Professor in Political Science at the Swedish Defence University, told public broadcaster SVT that Erdogan’s new gambit will have caught Sweden’s negotiators, the EU, and even Nato Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg off guard. 

“I think both the member states and Stoltenberg had expected this to be about Nato and not about what the EU is getting up to,” she said. “That’s not something Nato even has any control over. If Erdogan sticks to the idea that Turkey isn’t going to let Sweden into Nato until Turkey’s EU membership talks start again, then Sweden and Nato will need to think about another solution.” 

Aras Lindh, a Turkey expert at the Swedish Institute of Foreign Affairs, agreed that the move had taken Nato by surprise. 

“This came suddenly. I find it hard to believe that anything like this will become reality, although there could possibly be some sort of joint statement from the EU countries. I don’t think that any of the EU countries which are also Nato members were prepared for this issue.”

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