Sweden and other EU member states must submit their comments on the list to the EU Commission by June 10 at the latest.
Benjamin Dousa says he has just received the list and has not had time to examine whether it contains any goods of particular importance to Sweden or Swedish interests.
Last time, when the list was shorter, we submitted five commodity codes that we wanted to have removed, and three were removed. We will act in the same way this time, i.e., carefully analyze with the help of our expert authority and submit what we want to have removed.
The Minister for Foreign Trade stresses that the EU list is not an escalation of the customs turmoil from the Union's side.
From Europe's side, we do not want to escalate the situation. One should remember that Europe has not raised a single tariff during these weeks. We have paused our countermeasures. It is the USA that has escalated this several times.
The EU's countermeasures are about one thing, says Benjamin Dousa – to put pressure on the American administration to hold serious talks.
Now we are proceeding with both carrot and stick. The stick in the form of that if we do not reach serious talks, we will proceed with countermeasures. And the carrot in the form of that we can consider lowering our own tariffs.
