00:08joining me on 12 minutes with is sweden's minister for foreign affairs maria malmora stenergaard
00:14she is here in brussels for the foreign affairs council which will focus largely on
00:18ukraine her country continues to be one of ukraine's main allies contributing over 12
00:25a billion euros to kiev since the beginning of russia's full-scale invasion in 2022.
00:31welcome in the stand thank you very much for joining us thank you for having me the ongoing
00:35war in ukraine and the support for the country are at the heart of today's meeting in brussels now
00:41last week hungary threw a spanner in the works for the eu's planned 90 billion euros loan for kiev
00:47blocking it until the transit of russian oil resumes what is your reaction to this move of course i'm
00:54very frustrated with this and it's not logical because it was it was russia that bombed this
01:01this pipeline so i think that their frustration should be directed towards the kremlin and not
01:07towards ukraine or the eu we need to increase the support for ukraine and like i said i'm very
01:14frustrated to see that over and over again hungary is is blocking the support that is so much needed
01:22and what do you think about the timing of hungary's move well the timing for for stopping support
01:28for ukraine is always bad because they need every single piece of support that they can have
01:34we just announced our 21st support package last week with around 1.2 billion euros concentrating on
01:45air defense i believe that more countries should come up with bilateral support if they really mean
01:51what they say which almost all countries do that this is a fight that is not only for ukraine but
01:57also
01:57for our common freedom and and future ukraine's president of the marslansky warns of dire financial
02:04consequences if the loan does not receive support now member states have used some creative workarounds to
02:12hungarian vetoes in the past do you think this is the case nowadays is can something be done to work
02:19around it we must remember that the decision was already made so of course hungary should stick to
02:27that decision and it's illoyal of them not to do so um we need to make sure that ukraine gets
02:35that
02:35money it's around two-third of their budgetary needs that will be covered through that loan for two
02:43years and uh they really need that money so we have to find a way of of making this this
02:49happen but i'm
02:49very frustrated and you asked about the timing i think that that is no coincidence that uh elections are
02:56coming up in in hungary hungary is not alone in this uh slovakia's prime minister robert fitzo also said he
03:01will cut off emergency electricity supplies to kiev until ukraine restores uh russia's oil supplies to
03:10the country now what do you make of that and again the timing which coincides with hungarian statement
03:16it's russia that is the perpetrator it's russia that should uh be harmed in all of this and not ukraine
03:24so i'm deeply frustrated and it's it's so unloyal to behave like this and i expect the rest of the
03:32european
03:32union to put more pressure on these two countries that are behaving in this way minister ukraine is
03:39facing particularly depressing milestone this week uh 24th of february marks four years since russia's
03:46full-scale invasion of a ukraine so the country is entering indeed the fifth year and the attacks
03:53by russia continue with intensified campaigns specifically against civilian energy infrastructure
04:00the u.s diplomatic talks are ongoing but there is no significant outcome at this stage
04:07how do you see these talks progressing well first of all i'm grateful for all the efforts that are made
04:14to reach a peace i don't see any true willingness from the russian side to actually engage in real peace
04:23talks and that is why we need to change the calculus and we see that russia is already suffering
04:30the economy is hurting so bad and they have lost more than one million lives they've lost allies they've
04:38lost influence uh but we still need to increase the pressure on on russia in order to to change this
04:45this
04:46uh calculus well but the economy is suffering for four years now for russia and the losses in the troops
04:54does these doesn't seem to be enough for russia to engage in a more serious commitment so
05:00moscow as of now stands as if they are ready to continue they are ready to continue because they
05:07are ready to suffer but they do suffer and we have to make sure that they suffer even more meaning
05:14we have
05:14to increase the pressure even more on russia i showed the end of last year that we have actually bought
05:20energy from russia to an amount that exceeds our total support at the time that is so frustrating to see
05:27that
05:28we have still been feeding their war economy at the same time as we have been trying to support ukraine
05:34and those numbers should be completely different so we need to stop all import of russian energy
05:41and that is what hungary and slovakia should have done a long time ago but we need to move forward
05:46with
05:46with other actions as well such as stopping the imports of fertilizers and continue to work on
05:54sanctions against the shadow fleets your country is among the countries that invested much more
06:00finances and resources into supporting ukraine compared to so many other eu countries how does that
06:05make you feel regarding the burden sharing well several times i pointed to the fact that the nordics
06:13are doing a lot in order to support ukraine but by pointing to that i don't mean that we should
06:20do less
06:20i mean that others could do so much more so for instance uh the nordic countries last year in 2025
06:27contributed one third of all military support by nato countries um to ukraine and i mean we have
06:37around 30 million people and the nato has one billion so it says a lot about yes what the nordics
06:46do
06:46but also so much about what others could do and yes i am frustrated because when we say that the
06:55ukrainians
06:56are fighting not only for their freedom but also for ours we pay accordingly but it's up to others
07:03to live up to those fine words minister the eu leaders are now waiting fast tracking ukraine accession
07:09to the european union before some of the technical accession requirements now the date that we have
07:16been hearing around is as early as 2027 are you in favor of this approach of this fast track approach
07:25we are the first ones to say that that ukraine belongs in the european family and we are doing
07:31everything we can to help them reach their goal of eu membership at the same time it's important that
07:37they live up to their requirements we also have several other member states waiting to become
07:43members and waiting for different reasons and we need to find a way to treat them all fairly but yes
07:50we think it's it's such an asset that so many countries are now knocking on the european door wanting
07:57to become a part of our family and not leaning towards the east and instead let's pivot to the eu
08:03-us
08:04relations here the supreme court ruling that we've heard about trump's tariffs and his decision to
08:09impose new global tariffs of 15 now in response the european parliament's trade chief proposed freezing
08:17ratification of the trade deal made with washington last summer until there is some greater clarity
08:23do you agree with the argument what's your take on this first of all tariffs are harmful to businesses
08:29and to consumers i don't want tariffs at all basically and secondly i think you should honor agreements that
08:39were made now we have a problem on the u.s side because obviously um the supreme court had its
08:47ruling
08:48and now we see how u.s is behaving in an unpredictable way that is always harmful to the market
08:55and we want
08:56them to make clear what is now going to happen and then i expect the european union to to act
09:03in a way
09:04that takes us away from a trade war and uh to more prosperity in general another thing on the united
09:12states another key topic for europe in the recent days has been donald trump's board of peace now your
09:18country was offered a place but will not participate uh the eu foreign ministers are going to question the
09:25commission vice president dubravka schweizer about her participation at the launch are you critical
09:31about her visit to the inauguration well first of all it's very important that we move forward with the
09:39phase two of the peace plan for gaza and um we had this resolution adopted in the un that also
09:49defined
09:49the board of peace now what we got was something completely different so we support the peace
09:55process but we do not support an alternative to the un that the board of peace is more or less
10:01becoming
10:01we need to reform the un we don't need a new un that is why we have not participated finally
10:07another
10:07important topic uh iran last week you urged citizens to leave iran amid the growing risks of escalation in
10:15iran and in the region do you believe the us attack on the country is imminent well i wouldn't want
10:20to
10:20speculate about this uh it's it's my responsibility to protect the swedish citizens that are there that
10:29shouldn't actually be there because we have asked them to leave for for many years uh but i don't know
10:35what is going to happen i urge all parties to de-escalate get back to to diplomatic talks i think
10:43that's the
10:43the only way to to solve things long term should the situation there escalate and we've seen sign
10:49of it over the past couple of days as well with increased u.s military presence are you concerned
10:56about how it's going to impact also the region when it comes to the middle east oh yes we've seen
11:03during
11:03the 12-day war how it also affected the whole region um and and that people uh in general of
11:10course are
11:11affected and this is could be a very dangerous dangerous development and that is why we also urge
11:17all parties to to de-escalate but of course iran cannot be allowed to develop nuclear weapons so
11:26this is not an easy situation at all first and foremost for iran for iranians for iranians who have
11:33been suffering so badly and we've seen these horrible attacks on civilians um and we need to support the
11:40iranian people in their fight for their freedoms but we also need to to make sure that people
11:49don't suffer and that we don't escalate the situation in the region that is already so tense
11:53thank you very much for this interview thank you
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