Norway's Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre was the host for the top meeting of the JEF countries in Oslo on Friday. He signals unity behind US President Donald Trump's proposal for a 30-day ceasefire.
We need a ceasefire first, an unconditional ceasefire that must be monitored and respected before you can enter into negotiations about the big questions to achieve a long-term peace, says Støre.
He tells that they called Trump in connection with the JEF leaders' dinner on Thursday.
It was my and President Stubbs' proposal that we should have a direct dialogue.
So we simply called him up and put the phone on the table yesterday.
The conversation is said to have lasted, and is described as very useful.
I think the tone is still a bit more forward-looking, says Kristersson after Friday's consultations with the nine colleagues and Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyj via link, in Oslo City Hall.
There is a fatigue over Russia's unwillingness to act. A fatigue over Russia just pulling its feet and maneuvering all the time.
No one knows
He says it is unclear how hard Russia must be pressed.
There is no one who knows that right now. But it is clear that the more Europe and the US are in agreement, the greater the chance that this will succeed.
Zelenskyj also spoke about the pressure on Russia having to increase, according to Kristersson.
So far, Russia has several times proclaimed unilateral short-term ceasefires that it has itself broken. Right now, we are in such a period, says the Prime Minister.
It also requires an "or else". That is, sanctions against Russia. Preferably both European and American sanctions.
Sensitive issue
A sensitive issue is what is internationally called "boots on the ground", i.e. whether European countries should send peacekeepers to monitor a ceasefire. Russia has ruled out that it will agree to Western soldiers, while Denmark has signaled that it is needed.
The reason is, of course, that no one really trusts that Russia will respect an agreement, says the Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen in Oslo.
"Terra nullius"
The JEF meeting also security in the Arctic region, in light of the new US administration's threatening tone about "taking" Greenland.
There are those who have some kind of idea that up in the high north, it is a kind of "terra nullius" (no man's land), where laws do not apply. But laws apply. Sovereignty applies. And Greenland is part of the Kingdom of Denmark, says Støre.
Joint Expeditionary Force (JEF) is a cooperation for rapid military interventions in Northern Europe, as a complement to the defense alliance NATO. It was founded in 2014-15 with seven member countries: Denmark, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Norway, and the United Kingdom. In 2017, Finland and Sweden joined, followed in 2021 by Iceland.
At the top meeting in Oslo, the Prime Ministers and Prime Ministers Jonas Gahr Støre (Norway), Mette Frederiksen (Denmark), Kristen Michal (Estonia), Keir Starmer (the United Kingdom), Kristrún Frostadóttir (Iceland), Gintautas Paluckas (Lithuania), Dick Schoof (the Netherlands), and Sweden's Ulf Kristersson, as well as the Presidents Alexander Stubb (Finland) and Edgars Rinkevics (Latvia) participated.
