Swedish Foreign Minister Announces Shocking Departure from Politics

COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) — Swedish Foreign Minister Tobias Billström, who has led the Scandinavian country toward a sometimes nodular on the road to NATO membership and has openly spoken out in support of Ukraine, surprised the political establishment on Wednesday by announcing that he would leave the Swedish government next week.

“It wasn’t an easy decision, but I’ve been thinking about it and analyzing it for some time,” Billström wrote on X.

Billström became foreign minister in October 2022, when Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson formed a coalition government with his own conservative Moderate Party and the smaller Christian Democrats and Liberals.

In May 2022, Sweden and neighboring Finland applied for NATO membership, ending a decades-long neutrality after World War II and a century of broader impartiality toward major powers, as security concerns in Europe grew following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

After 18 months of delays, Sweden’s membership application cleared its final hurdle in February Hungary agreed.

Turkey also opposed Sweden joining the alliance, but Turkish lawmakers voted in favor on January 23. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan laid out a series of conditions, including a tougher stance by Stockholm toward groups Turkey sees as a threat to its security, such as Kurdish militants and members of a network it blames for a failed 2016 coup.

Sweden becomes 32nd member of military alliance in March. Billström, 50, told the X programme that he had guided Sweden through the “sometimes difficult NATO process”.

On Facebook, Kristersson wrote that Billström had fulfilled his duties “with flying colors.”

Billström said on X that he would “step away from politics completely. This means I am also leaving my seat in the Riksdag,” the Swedish parliament. The 349-member assembly will meet next week after the summer break.

Billström has not yet announced his future plans and his successor has not yet been named.