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When Swedish prime minister, the Social Democrat Göran Persson, telephoned opposition leader and Conservative Fredrik Reinfeldt from Brussels last December and asked him to lend his support for dropping the EU ban on arms sales he got it. I’ve written several times on this blog arguing against such a decision.

Now, the Conservative Party seems to retract their support. According to Sveriges Radio the party spokesman for foreign policy says (my translation): “We don’t think that it’s time to drop the ban, since the criteria aren’t fulfilled”. Right so.

Many European leaders – led by president Jaques Chirac – wants to drop the ban in June, and if no one’s prepared to oppose it that could well happen. Ms Carlsson now wants to work together with the British and the Czechs to prevent such a decision. That would be most welcome. However she is not prepared to explicitly demand that Sweden should use it’s veto if it comes down to it. Perhaps one should not expect that from a party who earlier supported the decision.

Meanwhile the Swedish foreign minister, Laila Freivalds, is reluctant to say anything at all on the matter, probably meaning that she doesn’t want to be associated with dropping the ban, but she doesn’t want to oppose it either.

Worth pointing out is that all the Conservatives say is that they don’t want the decision to be made as early as June. Considering the fact that it’s highly unlikely that China will change in a relevant way anytime soon that’s not a very impressive opinion. The EU shouldn’t even consider dropping the ban until China has changed dramatically.