During the night of Wednesday, the US and Sweden’s defense ministers signed a new defense agreement between the countries. If the agreement is ratified, it will give the US the right to, among other things, deploy military personnel in Sweden, conduct exercises, and store American defense equipment on Swedish territory. There is no explicit ban on nuclear weapons inscribed.
The Swedish Peace and Arbitration Association is strongly critical of the agreement.
– It is about Swedish territory. To open up to a foreign power, to the United States, to get the right to our military bases – 17 of them. It is an incredible restructuring of Swedish security policy that the Swedish people do not know about, or know what it will mean, says the association’s chairman and spokesperson, Kerstin Bergeå.
The Swedish people have not approved the agreement
Bergeå believes that while discussions and decisions have been made in the Riksdag about Swedish NATO membership, the government’s decision about this defense agreement has been made without the approval of the Swedish people.
– There has been no talk of entering into an in-depth military agreement with the United States. It’s something that happened completely under the radar of us ordinary citizens. We are concerned that Sweden will become an even bigger part of a nuclear arms buildup in the world and that the Swedish people have not been allowed to speak.
Hear more about Swedish Peace’s criticism – and why it is believed that the agreement is the wrong way to go – in the clip above.