H.E. Mr. Magnus Ryd?n:

I thank the Deputy for the questions. Looking at Sweden we have said that there is a before and after 24 February. We applied for NATO membership after the 24 February. That was later, in May. We have had a discussion and there is strong support for NATO membership in the Swedish Parliament and among the citizens too. There is also strong support for the EU as a whole in Sweden. It is interesting, because that support has grown after our Presidencies. For example, when we had the first Presidency in 2001 we could see that opinion was stronger for the European Union. It was the same with the other Presidencies. Hopefully with this Presidency we will also see an increase in public support for the European Union.

Coming back to the recent debate, we follow it every day and we see the discussions. Sweden, of course, has both supported Ukraine with humanitarian aid, economic aid and military means. I would not exclude anything these days but I have not seen any report as yet. The government decided on a huge package for Ukraine just last week.