STOCKHOLM, Aug 31 (Reuters) – Sweden signed an order for four Naval Group frigates during a \u200cceremony in Stockholm on Monday attended by \u200cFrench President Emmanuel Macron and Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson.<\/p>\n
Sweden, \u200bNATO’s newest member, is racing to build up its military strength after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 prompted the country to abandon its long-held policy \u200cof neutrality.<\/p>\n
European governments \u2060more generally have increased defence spending in response to pressure from U.S. President \u2060Donald Trump and increased doubt they can rely on U.S. support.<\/p>\n
“France and Sweden in the European Union \u200band in \u200bNATO show that European \u200bsovereignty is being built \u200ctogether,” Macron said.<\/p>\n
He said Sweden’s order “strengthens the industrial and technological basis of European defence at a time when Europeans must take greater responsibility for their own security and consolidate NATO’s European pillar.”<\/p>\n
In May, \u200cSweden said it would order \u200bthe vessels from the French \u200bcompany in a $4 \u200bbillion deal that will triple its \u200cair defence capacity.<\/p>\n
The first of \u200bthe four \u200bnew frigates, which will be the Swedish navy’s biggest ships, is expected to be delivered in \u200b2030.<\/p>\n
(Reporting by \u200cAnna Ringstrom, additional reporting by Michel Rose and \u200bDominique Vidalon in Paris, editing by Terje \u200bSolsvik and Barbara Lewis)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"STOCKHOLM, Aug 31 (Reuters) – Sweden signed an order for four Naval Group frigates during a \u200cceremony in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":156444,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[83],"tags":[73463,48369,230,72,68952,2000,73461,4344,73462,131,132,21628,4882],"class_list":["post-156443","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-stockholm","tag-aug-31","tag-ceremony","tag-emmanuel-macron","tag-european","tag-french","tag-macron","tag-naval-group","tag-reuters","tag-russias","tag-stockholm","tag-sweden","tag-swedish","tag-ulf-kristersson"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@dk\/117191214823699626","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156443","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=156443"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156443\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/156444"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=156443"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=156443"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=156443"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}