Sweden plans new foreign intelligence service

Sweden’s government says a new foreign intelligence service will begin operating on 1 January 2027, carving out overseas collection work now handled inside the military intelligence structure. The agency, to be called UND, was presented in Stockholm by foreign minister Maria Malmer Stenergard, who compared it to the UK’s MI6, according to Euronews.

The reorganisation is being sold as a lesson from the Ukraine war: information advantage, faster technical adaptation and closer alignment with Nato partners. Sweden joined Nato in 2024 after applying in 2022, ending two centuries of non-alignment, and officials now speak openly about “expectations” on allies’ intelligence contributions. UND is meant to sit beside the Swedish Security Service (Säpo), which focuses on domestic threats, and the National Defence Radio Establishment (FRA), which handles signals intelligence.

But creating a new agency does not create new information; it reshuffles who is allowed to collect it, who is allowed to brief ministers, and who gets blamed when assessments fail. Sweden already has MUST, the Military Intelligence and Security Service, responsible for foreign threats. Under the plan, UND will take over some of MUST’s tasks and work “closely” with the armed forces, Säpo and FRA, Euronews reports. In practice, that means more interfaces, more legal boundaries, and more meetings where responsibility can be passed along.

The government is also asking parliament to approve new authorities and secrecy arrangements. A bill establishing UND has been sent for legal scrutiny and is due to be submitted to the Riksdag in June 2026, with a vote planned later in the summer, according to Euronews. The pitch is that a dedicated civilian service provides a “more complete picture” of threats ranging from terrorism to cyber risks.

For Sweden’s partners, the change could make Stockholm easier to plug into existing intelligence exchanges, with clearer counterparts and mandates. For Sweden’s taxpayers, it creates a new budget line whose performance will be hard to audit in public: intelligence work is measured in warnings that cannot be proven, and failures that are only obvious after the fact.

UND is scheduled to exist on paper months before it exists in practice. On 1 January 2027, Sweden will have a new nameplate, a new chain of command, and the same adversaries watching the handover.