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On Wednesday, Interior Minister Mikael Damberg (S) and Finance and Housing Minister Per Bolund (MP) presented that civil defense will be strengthened in the years 2021-2025. The proposal is part of the defense bill that the government decided on Wednesday. The starting point is the December 2017 Defense Expansion Resistance report.
– The security policy situation in our immediate area has deteriorated and Sweden today faces a multifaceted threat. An armed attack on Sweden cannot be ruled out, says Mikael Damberg.
The 2017 report indicated that current medical care could not cope with an attack involving 10,000 injured people and now the government wants the number of care facilities to double in the event of war or crisis.
Per Bolund believes that Sweden during the pandemic it showed that it is possible to change quickly when it comes to medical places.
– A reasonable level of long-term ambition is to double the number of care places. The staff is the most important resource in the health service and therefore must be trained, exercised and prepared for situations in the event of further preparation and war, Bolund says.
– And Sweden needs more storage of medicines and medical supplies. We saw examples during the vulnerability pandemic in our society.
The Defense Committee said the country is vulnerable to threats, extortion and regular attacks where electrical power, telecommunications, data, transportation and payment systems are shut down. Therefore, the government must strengthen these areas. Civil defense must also ensure that the supply of water and food is secure. A cybersecurity center will also be set up.
The committee also suggested that 3,000 Former police officers will be deployed in a backup resource for further preparedness. But it is unclear whether the government will.
– The personnel issues are a bit broader, so we will have to investigate what needs there are, what opportunities to use different resources for this and then the issue of emergency police is included in that investigation, says Mikael Damberg and continues:
– In a protracted crisis situation in case of hybrid threats or increased preparedness and war, there may be a greater need for backup resources for, for example, surveillance. Next, we must take a holistic approach to issues in staffing-related research.
Strengthening the total defense it will allow Sweden in the future to manage on its own for three months until foreign aid arrives. But it is uncertain when exactly civil defense will expand to meet that goal.
– We do not have a date. The truth is that we started from a very low level because civil defense was more or less dissolved in many of its capacities. Several defense decision periods were required to dismantle the civil depot. It will take more than one defense decision period to build it, says Mikael Damberg.
In the future, the government will investigate who will lead civil defense in a crisis or war. The costs of civil defense will increase year after year and in 2025 it is estimated that it will cost just over 4 billion SEK.
