Cold Facts reveals the Swedish Export Credit Agency’s deal with the Dictator.
The Famous Double Standards of Sweden
Cold Facts (Kalla Fakta) now reveal how the Swedish Export Credit Agency, EKN, guaranteed close to 2 billion in a deal that benefits dictator Alexander Lukashenko in Belarus – while the dictator brutally imprisoned, tortured, and even killed people who demonstrated for democracy after the country’s rigged elections.
Sweden has frozen aid to state actors in Belarus and backed the EU’s trade sanctions against the country. But at the end of September, when the violence in Belarus is at its most brutal, a Swedish authority decides to support a billion-dollar deal that benefits the dictatorship.
The decision is made at the highest level
It is the Swedish Export Credit Agency that acts as a guarantor to help the regime’s state energy company Brestenergo buy Swedish gas turbines. The decision is made at the highest level – by the Director-General Anna-Karin Jatko and the Export Credit Board.
Pavel Latushko was a former minister in Lukashenko’s government but is now an opposition politician in exile. He reacts strongly to Sweden’s support for the deal.
– I’m frustrated. Thousands of people were arrested and detained during those eight months. That Sweden, in that situation, cooperates with the regime – I can never accept that.
See the full Kalla Fakta’s revelation in the player beneath.
Source:
https://www.voiceofbelarus.com/belarus-daily-28-apr/
https://belarusabroad.org/en/2021/04/ekn-freezes-loan-insurance-for-the-purchase-of-turbines-at-belnpp/
https://www.tv4.se/artikel/4Z3rOgdWYHJvznMJXoUJQ8/svensk-myndighet-i-miljardaffaer-med-lukasjenko?fbclid=IwAR1ssO4M8UA_tqNPbTvzN7XVdojawb95-ADHA4Xk6xv58nQ1mvuRLo_E76c
Swedens Government – Written question 2020/21: 2691
by Markus Wiechel (SD)
To: Anna Hallberg (S)
In August 2020, we were able to follow the events surrounding the rigged election in Belarus closely – the people who have long been tired of oppression and therefore chose to protest against the dictatorship, sadly with little result. They were brutally crushed by the dictator’s security forces, which to this day still control the country.
Even if the Sweden Democrats believe that the government has been too slow and cautious with measures against the dictatorship, there should still be a broad consensus that the current government is not legitimate. The Sweden Democrats, therefore, welcome the fact that aid to the state actors in Belarus has been frozen and that they are behind the EU’s trade sanctions against the country. What is remarkable, however, is the new information that has emerged in TV4’s program Kalla Fakta.
When the state-sanctioned aggravated violence against the peaceful democracy movement in the country was most brutal at the end of September, it turns out that an authority, the Swedish Export Credit Agency, chose to support a billion-dollar deal that benefits the energy companies of the Belarusian dictatorship. The Swedish authority is thus the guarantor of being granted a loan (to buy Swedish gas turbines) from, in this case, a German bank. In other words, if the borrowing costs are not paid by the dictatorship, the Swedish authority is responsible for the costs, a loan guarantee worth close to SEK 2 billion.
It is, to put it mildly, astonishing that a Swedish authority cooperates with a regime that brutally beats down its democracy-seeking citizens, arbitrarily imprisons innocent people, and exposes political prisoners to extensive torture. The fact that the latest loan guarantee was promised as late as January this year makes it all extra serious.
Due to this, I would like to ask Minister Anna Hallberg:
How does the Government view the information that has emerged in Kalla Fakta, how has this been possible and what measures does the Government intend to take?
English 
Русский 
Українська 
Slovenčina 
Italiano 
Ελληνικά