Read news from:
Austria
SHARE
COPY LINK

NATO

Here’s the exact moment when Sweden could officially join Nato

Sweden is expected to join Nato today, with Hungarian foreign minister stepping off his flight to the US early on Thursday morning, carrying his country's ratification documents.

Published: 6 March 2024 14:40 CET
Updated: 7 March 2024 09:27 CET
Here's the exact moment when Sweden could officially join Nato
Swedish Foreign Minister Tobias Billström, left, and Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson at a press conference not related to the article. Photo: Lars Schröder/TT

“Only hours to go until Sweden joins Nato,” wrote Hungarian foreign minister Péter Szijártó on Facebook, posting a picture of himself stepping out of a car at Budapest Airport. “The ratification document is on its way,” he added, next to a Swedish flag emoji.

Just after 4am, Swedish time, Szijártó posted another update, saying he had landed in Washington DC.

Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson and Foreign Minister Tobias Billström flew to Washington on Wednesday, according to a government statement.

The statement mentions only that “bilateral meetings with the American administration and meetings with members of Congress” will take place, but according to a public schedule published by the US State Department, Kristersson and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken are set to meet at 11.15am Eastern Time (5.15pm Stockholm time).

It is likely that Kristersson will take that opportunity to present Blinken with Sweden’s accession documents.

That will then be the moment when Sweden formally becomes a member of the military alliance.

READ ALSO:

A ceremony to hoist the Swedish flag at the Nato headquarters in Brussels is scheduled for Monday.

Member comments

Log in here to leave a comment.
Become a Member to leave a comment.

ECONOMY

Swedish inflation drops below 4 percent for first time in two years

Sweden's consumer price index fell to 3.9 percent in February, reinforcing predictions that the central bank will keep lowering interest rates this year.

Published: 15 May 2024 09:25 CEST
Swedish inflation drops below 4 percent for first time in two years

The yearly inflation rate according to the consumer price index (CPI) was down from 4.1 percent in January, according to number crunchers Statistics Sweden.

Experts had predicted an inflation rate of 4.0 percent, according to Bloomberg.

“The effect of increasing interest rates for household’s mortgages is easing, which can explain the decreasing inflation rate in April,” Statistics Sweden analyst Carl Mårtensson said in a statement.

Inflation measured instead according to the CPIF metric – the consumer price index with interest rate fluctuations taken out of the equation – meanwhile rose slightly from 2.2 to 2.3 percent.

However, that still beats expectations, which had predicted CPIF inflation of 2.4 percent.

YOUR SWEDISH MONEY:

That puts it slightly above the Riksbank’s inflation target of two percent, and experts predicted that Wednesday’s inflation news strengthened the likelihood that the bank will cut interest rates further.

The Riksbank last week slashed Sweden’s so-called policy rate for the first time in eight years.

The policy rate is the central bank’s main monetary policy tool. It decides which rates Swedish banks can deposit in and borrow money from the Riksbank, which in turn affects the banks’ own interest rates on savings, loans and mortgages.

If bank interest rates are high, it’s expensive to borrow money, which means people spend less and as a result inflation drops.

But now that inflation appears to be holding relatively steady around the two percent target, it means that the bank might be able to start lowering the policy rate yet again.

SHOW COMMENTS