Posts Tagged ‘Sweden’
Saab signs new agreements with Polish PGZ and WB Group
Saab deepens its collaboration with Poland’s defence industry and has today signed further collaboration agreements with Polska Grupa Zbrojeniowa (PGZ) and WB Group.
“Signing these new agreements with both PGZ Group and WB Group marks important new milestones in strengthening collaboration between the Polish and Swedish defence industries. By sharing expertise and scaling up innovation together, we can ensure the development of advanced solutions and capabilities that will contribute to security and stability in Europe and the Baltic Sea region,” says Micael Johansson, President and CEO of Saab.
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Originally published on 12 Mar
Read MoreArms across the water Sweden is helping Poland spend its defence budget
A delegation of more than 100 representatives from Sweden, led by the country’s king, wrapped up a three-day visit to Poland on Wednesday that was focused on deepening security and economic co-operation between the two countries.
The visit comes as Stockholm and Warsaw are assembling defence forces that Moscow would think twice about tangling with. Both have shown that they can keep low-intensity harassment in the Baltic in check, but the bigger concern is whether they would be able to prevent a Russian land grab, and whether they could do so independent of American help.
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A Polish-Swedish partnership is a match made in military-industrial heaven. Concerned that it does not have the modern kit needed to pose a credible deterrence, Poland is spending half of its defence budget—per capita the largest in Nato—on new equipment. That is more money than it can spend at home, and it has made Poland one of the biggest markets for Swedish arms exporters.
Saab’s sales of big-ticket items account for much of that, but there is plenty of potential for smaller firms to get in on the act, according to Business Sweden, a lobby group. It reckons that there are some 380 companies—many of them small and medium-sized—involved directly in arms production, and that vastly more making the civilian technologies that go into weapons. Modern warfare is good business for ploughshares that can be used as swords.
Open arms Nato’s Baltic members agree to open their borders in the event of an emergency
The eight Nato countries bordering the Baltic Sea, together with Iceland and Norway, have pledged to open their borders to each other’s citizens should they be forced to flee in the event of a disaster. The agreement is an extension of a patchwork of arrangements among some of the countries in the region and will make it possible to co-ordinate responses and establish uniform procedures for doing so.
The bear not in the room is Russia. The Kremlin has repeatedly said that it does not intend to invade Nato countries, but western intelligence agencies have advised their governments to be ready for everything from small-scale shenanigans to an outright invasion. Military collaboration has long been a way to signal to their populations that they are doing what they can to prevent such things from happening. Now, civil-defence agencies are showing they will be taken care of in the event they do.
RELATED ARTICLE } Swedes preparing to receive Bornholm refugees
Read MoreNiklas Finné appointed acting CEO of CMP
Copenhagen Malmö Port CFO CFO Niklas Finné has been appointed acting CEO effective 1 March. He remain in the position until a replacement for Barbara Scheel Agersnap, who has chosen to step down.
Niklas has been part of CMP’s executive management team since 2019 and, in his role as CFO, has played an important part in developing the business and creating stable conditions for the company’s continued progress. As Acting CEO, he will ensure continuity in the strategic work, which is now entering an important implementation phase.
He will continue in his position as CFO after the new CEO is in place.
Connect with Niklas on LinkedIn
Read MoreMirova and Evecon’s Baltic Renewable Energy Platform (BREP) launches Estonia’s largest solar‑plus‑storage hybrid project, signs first-of-its-kind Flexibility & Power Purchase Agreement in the Baltics with Pure Energy, and secures long-term financing from Swedbank
Mirova, an affiliate of Natixis Investment Managers dedicated to sustainable investing, and Evecon announce a series of major milestones supporting the acceleration of Estonia’s energy transition, through their jointly owned Baltic Renewable Energy Platform OÜ (“BREP”):
- Hybridization of the 77.5 MWp Kirikmäe Solar Photovoltaic (PV) plant with a 55 MW / 250 MWh Battery Energy Storage System (BESS),
- Execution of the first Flexibility & Power Purchase Agreement (FPPA) ever signed in the Baltics, with Pure Energy GmbH, and
- Completion of a new c.€85 million long‑term financing package from Swedbank.
Together, these developments demonstrate how combining renewable generation with energy storage and long term optimization tools can unlock new value for the Baltic energy market and support Estonia’s long term energy independence.
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Originally published on 16 Feb
Read MoreKeeping up with the Nordics Baltics staying the course against corruption
When it comes to corruption rankings, there are the Nordics and then there is everyone else. Again this year, Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden ended in a log jam at the top of the Corruption Perceptions Index, an annual ranking of perceived corruption in the public sector. Germany rounded out the top 10. The Baltic states (Estonia: 12; Lithuania: 28th; Latvia: 37) are showing that despite some setbacks (including the resignation of Lithuania’s prime minister last year amid a corruption scandal), that they, too, take corruption seriously.
Transparency International, which has produced the report each year since 1995, cautions against easing up against corruption, even in the Nordic countries, but, in the Baltic region, the trends at least are with them: countries with the best records are generally democratic and highly digitalised.
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That will show the path for Poland (52). To be sure, it has shown improvement since PiS, an illiberal regime that dismembered the country’s civil-society infrastructure, was voted out of office in 2023, and it finds itself solidly in the top third of the table.
Progress, though, has been modest, due to what has been deemed insufficient efforts to undo the damage done by PiS. Russia (157) finished level with Chad, Honduras and Zimbabwe. An outlier in a sea of outliers.
Cross-border collaboration can strengthen sustainable cultural tourism
Strong and durable collaboration between cultural actors and tourism stakeholders across Northern Sweden and Northern Finland could play an important role in strengthening regional development in the Bothnian Arc. This conclusion is presented in a new white paper produced within the ACCENT project, a cross-border collaboration between the University of Oulu, Luleå University of Technology, LTU Business, and the Oulu Culture Foundation.
The white paper, Opening pathways to sustainable cultural tourism in the North, presents evidence-based insights from the ACCENT project on how culture-led tourism can support sustainable regional development across Northern Sweden and Northern Finland.
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Originally published on 9 Feb
Read MoreVeronika Leo new managing director of Port of Ystad
The Port of Ystad’s supervisory board has appointed Veronika Leo as the new managing director.
Veronika moves to the position after having served five years as the port’s financial manager.
Connect with Veronika on LinkedIn
Read MoreSödra’s divestment of its forest holdings in the Baltics is now completed
The agreement between Södra and the Ingka Group’s investment company, Ingka Investments, regarding Södra’s forest holdings in the Baltics has now been approved and finalised.
With the aim of doing what is best for the forest estate and for Södra’s long-term competitiveness, Södra decided in early 2025 to divest all its forest holdings in Latvia and Estonia. Since the agreement with the buyer in October 2025, a competition review and approvals from local authorities have been underway – a process that has now been concluded. The transaction, with a purchase price of 720 million euros, is therefore complete.
Read full announcement (external link)
Originally published on 30 Jan
Read MoreDoldrums Offshore wind in Sweden is losing speed
Eolus, a Swedish renewable-energy firm, announced last week that it had given up all but one of its offshore wind projects in the country.
The decision was not due to a lack of wind resources; starting in 2021, Eolus began expanding its capacity after evaluating that offshore wind would be necessary—and sufficient—for Stockholm to achieve its power-production targets. Eolus eventually built up a portfolio of projects with a planned capacity of 8.8MW. It blames a slow pace of electrification, as well as regulatory barriers and a lack of political support for making offshore wind unprofitable.
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Eolus is not alone in its assessment. Earlier this month, RWS, a German firm, sold its Swedish offshore activities, stating that it was looking for a more dynamic market.
On paper, at least, Sweden fits that bill: it is already one of Europe’s largest onshore producers, and, with coastlines along both the North and Baltic seas and an estimated potential in excess of 100MW, it could also be one of its largest offshore producers. That it is not on its way to being so stems, in part, from a 2024 decision by the government to cancel 13 wind farms planned for the Baltic, totalling 32MW and €47 billion in investments.
The cancellation was made due to concerns that Baltic windfarms would just be another target for Russian shenanigans, and that the decision was made on the advice of the military. The industry says that does not explain why Sweden fell behind in the first place.
Sweden, it points out has 0.2GW of offshore windfarms, while neighbouring Denmark has up 2.6GW up and running. It also points out that the other countries of the Baltic have been able to balance security concerns with energy needs—and indeed incorporate them.
Domestically, the 13 cancelled projects, all of them to have been built in the south, would have been a way for Sweden to balance its grid; currently, producers in the north, where there is a surplus, may only send a limited amount of power to the south, where consumption outstrips demand. By removing the targets, Sweden may be shooting itself in the foot.