Chancellor: Energy and security: Scholz visits Scandinavia

Chancellor
Energy and security: Scholz visits Scandinavia

Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) arrives at the military part of Berlin-Brandenburg Airport BER for the flight to Norway. photo

© Kay Nietfeld/dpa

The Chancellor’s first trip after his summer vacation is heading north. In Scandinavia, Scholz wants to take care of closer cooperation in the energy sector. But there is also the issue of safety.

Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) left on Monday for a two-day trip to Scandinavia. In the Norwegian capital Oslo, he wants to meet the heads of government of the five Nordic countries, which include Sweden, Finland, Denmark and Iceland in addition to Norway. The focus will be on cooperation in the energy sector, security issues and the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine. Two of the Nordic countries – Finland and Sweden – want to join NATO.

Following the large-scale consultation, Scholz will speak with Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre on a joint boat tour in the evening. In the evening, the Chancellor will travel on to Sweden, where he will meet Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson for a one-on-one meeting on Tuesday morning. A visit to the truck manufacturer Scania is then planned, which is working together with Volkswagen on concepts for the electrification of truck traffic.

The federal government has been trying for months to forge closer partnerships with the Scandinavians in the energy sector in order to get rid of Russian gas imports. Norway has been Germany’s most important gas supplier since Russian gas supplies were cut back drastically in mid-June. Federal Economics Minister Robert Habeck (Greens) was in Oslo in mid-March, just a few weeks after the start of the Ukraine war, to intensify energy cooperation. It was also about the possible construction of a pipeline for the transport of hydrogen from Norway to Germany.

Another topic is the expansion of NATO

The visit to Stockholm in particular will also deal with the expansion of NATO. Finland and Sweden want to join the western defense alliance. 23 out of 30 member states have already agreed, including Germany. Among others, however, Turkey is still missing, which had blocked the admission process for a long time and tied its approval to conditions.

Another topic could be entering the European Union from Russia. Finland is currently examining ways of restricting tourist visas for Russian citizens – Scholz spoke out against such a visa ban for Russians last week. “This is Putin’s war, and that’s why I have a hard time with this thought,” he said.

The deliberations in Oslo are also a meeting of European party friends: the prime ministers of Denmark, Sweden and Finland and the prime minister of Norway are all social democrats. The Swede Andersson is currently in the middle of an election campaign before the Swedish parliamentary elections on September 11th.

A summit meeting between Germany and the five Nordic countries last took place three years ago. In 2019, the then Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU) traveled to Iceland – before the corona pandemic and long before the Ukraine war. The main topic at the time: climate change.

dpa

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