LIVE: German Chancellor Friedrich Merz & Swedish PM Ulf Kristersson – Berlin Press Briefing | AC15

Ladies and gentlemen, I invite you to the signing of the joint declaration of intent with our partners.

Declaration of intent with His Excellency Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson on behalf of the Kingdom of Sweden and Federal Chancellor Friedrich Merz on behalf of the Federal Republic of Germany.

So, okay.

Ladies and gentlemen, we will now move straight on to the press conference. The Prime Minister and the Federal Chancellor will speak. Afterwards, we will have time for questions. Mr. Chancellor, please.

Yes, thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen. Dear Mr. Prime Minister, dear Ulf, we have already met several times — at the Nordic summit in Finland, at the European Councils, at the NATO summit — and today I am delighted to welcome you to Berlin on your state visit. It is a great pleasure for me to be with you. A number of representatives from Sweden, from politics and business, have travelled to Berlin, and it was a particular honour for me today to meet Crown Princess Victoria of Sweden, who came with you to Berlin and who gave a very remarkable speech in the German Bundestag on Volkstrauertag last year. Today we have decided to further develop our innovation partnership. In doing so, we are placing cooperation in security and defence policy at the centre. We are entering into new cooperations, among others in migration policy and in financial policy. We will also strengthen our cooperation in the fight against irregular migration and work more closely together in the area of capital markets. Germany and Sweden are close partners, bilaterally and within the European Union. Since Sweden's accession to NATO, we are also partners in NATO — allies. This shows that Russia's attempts to divide Europe are not working. On the contrary, Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine is bringing us Europeans even closer together. I personally could not have imagined that Sweden and Finland would one day join NATO. The terrible war in Ukraine made it possible. We will therefore also intensify our cooperation in the defence industry. To that end, our defence ministers signed an agreement yesterday. We are both convinced that the European Union can and must make a contribution in the defence industry. This also includes removing barriers in the internal market for defence goods. We want to work together on this in the European Council. We also exchanged views — and this will not surprise you — on the situation in Ukraine. We Europeans can make the greatest difference if we reach an agreement in December on the use of Russian assets. This is our strongest lever to bring Moscow to the negotiating table and to bring this terrible war to an end in perspective. I would like to expressly thank the Swedish government and the Swedish Prime Minister for supporting my proposal, which I submitted to the European Council. We both want to work to ensure that it is also supported by all other member states in the European Union, because Russia is attacking Ukraine's energy infrastructure deliberately, ruthlessly and with precision. Germany recently made a contribution to the Energy Support Fund of 60 million euros, bringing the total to 450 million euros, simply to support the energy supply in Ukraine over the winter. We are also continuously reviewing where we can provide further support, where we can continue to help Ukraine in this war winter that lies ahead. We want to increase our financial support for the Ukrainian military by a further 3 billion euros next year. We are doing all this not only to help Ukraine, but also in our own security interest. In return, we expect Ukraine to remain a reliable partner. And that also means really ruthless action against corruption. That is an absolute must in Ukraine. I have already told the President twice — once in person and once in a telephone conversation in recent days. All of this remains a prerequisite for further progress on the path to the European Union. We briefly exchanged views on the conflict. The Federal Government welcomes the mandate of the United Nations Security Council to implement the 20-point plan for Gaza. What is important now is the disarmament of Hamas, the guarantee of security and the reconstruction of the Gaza Strip. The Federal Government will make its own contributions to this in an appropriate manner. Our goal is a stable peace for Israelis and Palestinians in a Middle East in which Israel is no longer a foreign body, but a partner for its neighbours as well. Ladies and gentlemen, strengthening European competitiveness remains our priority on the European Union's agenda. Only a economically strong European Union is able to assert itself as a geopolitical actor and defend its own interests and values. We therefore want to continue to push together for more flexible regulation that gives companies in the European Union more leeway and leeway for rapid and pragmatic implementation, and that strengthens growth opportunities. I do not want to leave unmentioned that we also discussed the multiannual financial framework. It must serve the competitiveness of European industry, and we will also coordinate closely here on how we will conduct the negotiations on this multiannual financial framework next year. Last but not least, we discussed migration. For us, it is clear that irregular migration is a Europe-wide challenge. Germany has already done a lot to significantly reduce the number of asylum applications. We have succeeded in that, but it is not enough. That is why we will continue to pursue this path together at the European level. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, those are, from our perspective, the most important points that we have discussed and talked about together. I would like to say once again that I am very pleased that we met here in Berlin today. We work very closely and very cooperatively together in the European Union. Germany and the North have traditionally had a very good relationship, and Germany and Sweden are close partners in many respects. There are actually no problems between our two countries. On the contrary, we have common projects in the European Union, and we have discussed them intensively. And that is why, dear Ulf, thank you once again very much for your really close partnership with Germany, and for our personal close cooperation. I am very pleased that we are succeeding in this and that we are also advancing it further in the European Union.

Thank you. Lina Lund from Dagens Nyheter. Mr. Chancellor, as opposition leader you called for Germany to deliver Taurus to Ukraine. Taurus is a Swedish-German project. You did not do so. Could you please explain to my Swedish readers why?

We have been working intensively in recent months with the Ukrainian government to implement projects for long-range fire, as we call it technically. The Ukrainian army is being equipped with such weapons systems. We have agreed that we will no longer discuss details publicly, because we also believe that a certain degree of uncertainty vis-à-vis the Russian side must exist regarding the extent to which we are providing military support here. I can only say this much: we are doing everything we can to equip the Ukrainian army with weapons systems that have a corresponding range. And this will increase in the coming weeks and months, as far as it proves necessary, up to the production of such weapons systems in Ukraine itself.