Sweden’s ruling party has started debating whether the country should join Nato, and neighboring Finland expects to make a decision within weeks as Moscow warned that the Nordic nations’ entry would bring “no stability” to Europe.
Both countries are officially non-aligned militarily, but public support for NATO membership has nearly doubled since Russia invaded Ukraine, to around 50% in Sweden and 60% in Finland, multiple opinion polls show.
Sweden’s centre-left Social Democrats, led by Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson, said their “security clearance” was about more than just joining the 30-nation alliance, adding that the party could decide to run without the support of members .
After emphasizing at the outbreak of war that nonalignment had “served Sweden’s interests well,” Andersson said she was “ready to discuss policy” in the face of Moscow’s aggression, and said in late March that she “didn’t rule out” joining “. NATO.
“When Russia invaded Ukraine, Sweden’s security position changed fundamentally,” the party said in a statement on Monday. Social Democrat Secretary General Tobias Baudin said the security check would be completed “before the summer”.
The issue is expected to be a key issue in the September 11 general election, with centre-right opposition parties already saying they would back a Nato proposal and the far-right Sweden Democrats also open to the idea.
Finland, which shares a 1,340 km (830 miles) border with Russia and, like Sweden, is a NATO partner having abandoned its position of strict neutrality at the end of the Cold War, is expected to make its decision on the alliance before midsummer.
Alexander Stubb, a former prime minister of Finland, told AFP it was “a foregone conclusion” that Helsinki would bid to join NATO, probably in time for a NATO summit in Madrid in June.
A government-commissioned national security review is due to be presented to Parliament next week to help Finnish MPs decide on the issue before they vote. A recent poll found only six of the country’s 200 MPs opposed it.
“We will hold very careful talks but will not take any more time than necessary,” the country’s Prime Minister Sanna Marin said last week. “I think we’ll end the discussion before midsummer,” she said.
Both countries have given public assurances from NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg that their applications are welcome, as well as statements of support from several members including the US, UK, Germany, France and Turkey.
But the move would almost certainly be seen as a provocation by the Kremlin, whose spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Monday that the alliance was “a confrontational instrument” and that its eventual accession “will not bring stability to the European continent”. .