Read news from:
Austria
SHARE
COPY LINK

NATO

Hungary hands over ratification as White House confirms Sweden to join Nato on Thursday

Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson is set to meet US Secretary of State Antony Blinken at 5.15pm Stockholm time, which is likely going to be the moment when he submits Sweden's Nato accession documents and the country officially joins the military alliance.

Published: 7 March 2024 11:48 CET
Updated: 7 March 2024 14:23 CET
Hungary hands over ratification as White House confirms Sweden to join Nato on Thursday
Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson is in Washington DC to hand over his country's Nato accession documents. Photo: Pontus Lundahl/TT

Hungary on Thursday afternoon, Stockholm time, handed over its ratification of Sweden as the last country to do so.

“Sweden is formally joining the NATO Alliance on March 7, 2024, becoming the 32nd Ally,” wrote the White House earlier in the day.

Kristersson and Swedish Foreign Minister Tobias Billström are in Washington DC, having flown there on Wednesday.

According to a public schedule published by the US State Department, Blinken and Kristersson are set to meet at 11.15am Eastern Time, or 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.

“Sweden is a strong democracy with a highly capable military that shares our values and vision for the world. Having Sweden as a NATO Ally will make the United States and our Allies even safer,” added the White House’s statement.

Kristersson is set to give a speech to the nation at 7pm.

He is also on the guest list for President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address in the evening.

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

READ ALSO:

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