Sweden’s ruling party has launched a debate over whether the country should join NATO, and neighboring Finland expects to reach a decision within weeks, as Moscow warned that joining the Nordic countries “will not bring stability” to Europe.
Both countries are officially non-militarily committed, but public support for NATO membership has doubled since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to about 50 percent in Sweden and 60 percent in Finland, according to numerous opinion polls.
Sweden’s center-left Social Democrats, led by Prime Minister Magdalena Anderson, said their “security review” was more than just joining the 30-nation alliance, adding that the party could decide to run without the support of members.
Stressing at the outbreak of the war that non-alignment “served Sweden’s interests well”, Anderson said he was “ready to” discuss politics in the light of Moscow’s aggression, and said in late March that he “does not rule out” NATO accession.
“When Russia invaded Ukraine, Sweden’s security stance changed fundamentally,” the party said in a statement Monday. Social Democrat Secretary-General Tobias Bodin said the security review would be completed “before the summer”.
The issue is expected to be a key issue in the September 11 parliamentary elections, with center-right opposition parties already saying they would support NATO’s bid, and far-right Swedish Democrats also open to the idea.
Finland, which shares a 1,340 km (830-mile) border with Russia and like Sweden, is a NATO partner after renouncing its position of strict neutrality at the end of the Cold War and is expected to outline a decision on the alliance before summer.
Alexander Stubb, Finland’s former prime minister, told AFP that Helsinki was “predestined” to apply to join NATO, probably in time for the NATO summit in Madrid in June.
A government-commissioned national security review is due to be submitted to parliament next week to help Finnish lawmakers resolve the issue before voting, with a recent poll showing that only six of the country’s 200 lawmakers were against.
“We will have very careful discussions, but we will not take more time than we should,” Prime Minister Sanna Marin said last week. “I think we will end the discussion before mid-summer,” she said.
Both sides received public assurances from NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg that their candidacies would be welcome, as well as expressions of support from several members, including the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, France and Turkey.
But the move will almost certainly be seen as a provocation by the Kremlin, whose spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Monday that the alliance was a “confrontational tool” and that their eventual accession “would not bring stability to the European continent”.
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