The Riksdag (the Swedish parliament)'s Foreign Affairs Committee met on Thursday. Maria Malmer Stenergard (M) presented the government's position ahead of the EU foreign ministers' meeting in Luxembourg on Monday.
A sensitive issue is the EU's trade agreement with Israel, which has been the subject of heated debate since the Hamas terrorist attack on October 7, 2023.
Last year, the Swedish government announced that it was pushing within the EU to freeze the agreement.
"Sweden therefore demands that the EU freeze the trade part of the association agreement as soon as possible. The economic pressure on Israel must increase," Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson (M) wrote in July 2025.
SD and KD upset
This caused great outrage among both the Sweden Democrats and the Christian Democrats, and the government has been largely silent on the issue since.
After the committee meeting on Thursday, Malmer Stenergard had to rush off but later returned with a written comment. It states that she is no longer actively pushing for a freeze on the agreement.
"In this tense situation, the government considers that it is neither appropriate nor possible to initiate new processes. We have chosen to focus on pursuing measures that increase pressure on the Israeli government and have a real chance of being adopted," she wrote to TT.
After the election, the red-green parties have a majority in the Riksdag and can therefore urge the government to push more clearly for a pause or freeze of the trade part of the agreement.
C does not want to give information
S, V and MP are pushing the issue. This means the Center Party's vote could be decisive.
"We will send something out," says Birgitta Ohlsson, C's member of the Foreign Affairs Committee, after the meeting, without elaborating on what that means.
Morgan Johansson (S), chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, also does not want to make any announcements today.
"I'll be back," he says.
The Sweden Democrats' foreign policy spokesman, Aron Emilsson, is clear that he does not want to see the agreement frozen. He believes this would be harmful and leave Sweden isolated within the EU.
"It would be harmful if a parliamentary majority were to push forward a position that a transitional government would have to defend and might find difficult to take full responsibility for. So that would be unfortunate, and it would disrupt our relations with Israel," he says.
