After a nearly two-year wait, Sweden officially joined NATO on March 7th, 2024, ending its longstanding policy of non-alignment. Sweden has now become the 32nd member of the military alliance, following Finland’s accession to the bloc last year, thus cementing NATO’s control of the Nordic region.
Since the end of its last war in 1814, Sweden, like its neighbor Finland, had long adopted a policy of neutrality, refusing to take sides in wars or to join any military alliance. A position kept also during challenging times such as World War II, when Sweden made concessions to Germany to avoid involvement in the conflict, and during the Cold War, when Sweden and Finland served as buffer countries between NATO and the Warsaw Pact Alliance to mitigate tensions with Russia (Keyton, 2024).
However, perceptions started to change following Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014, and were further altered by the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Swedes began to question their neutrality and express concern about what appeared to be a resurgence of Russian imperialism. The impact of the Russian invasion of Ukraine on Swedish political life was significant, with support for NATO membership surging from 35% in 2021 to 64% after the invasion (Keyton, 2024).
For these reasons, in May 2022 Sweden and Finland jointly submitted their applications for NATO membership. For a new country to join NATO, it is necessary that the parliaments of each member state ratify the accession. While most NATO members swiftly endorsed their accession, long negotiations were needed to obtain the consent of Turkey and Hungary. Turkey opposed the approval of the entry of the two countries, accusing their governments of supporting and harboring members of certain Kurdish organizations, particularly the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which Turkey considers a terrorist organization (Il Post, 2024). Hungary, on the other hand, accused them of spreading false information about the state of its democracy, a reference to criticism received by the government of Viktor Orbán for failure to respect human rights and the rule of law (Il Post, 2024). Some observers attributed the delay to Orbán’s close ties to Russia’s president Vladimir Putin, while others stressed that he used its veto power to obtain some concessions, as he had done in previous occasions (Higgins, 2024).
While Finland has gone through relatively smoother negotiations and managed to join NATO in April 2023, negotiations continued for Sweden, which was the primary political target of the Turkish and Hungarian governments, delaying its entry. Ultimately, concessions were made by the Swedish government, and Turkey ratified the accession protocol in January 2024, while Hungary’s parliament voted in favor at the end of February. This was made possible thanks to a defense deal that was signed between Sweden and Hungary, allowing for the sale of more Swedish jet fighters to Hungary (Politico.eu, 2024).
Sweden’s entry into NATO marks a historical moment, both for the identity of the country itself, bidding farewell to its nearly two-centuries-long neutrality, and for the international landscape. NATO solidifies its control of the Nordic region, with all countries now members, and makes the Baltic an entirely “NATO sea” (Bryant, 2024). It appears that the biggest loser in this situation is Russia, which started the war in Ukraine to prevent NATO membership at its doorstep, and eventually sees NATO enlarge with two new members.
Bibliography
Bryant, M. (2024, March 7). Sweden finally joins Nato after nearly two-year wait. Retrieved from The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/mar/07/sweden-joins-nato-after-ratification-hungary-drops-opposition
Higgins, A. (2024, February 26). Hungary’s Parliament Approves Sweden’s NATO Bid After Stalling. Retrieved from The New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/26/world/europe/sweden-nato-hungary.html
Il Post. (2024, March 7). La Svezia è entrata ufficialmente nella NATO. Retrieved from Il Post: https://www.ilpost.it/2024/03/07/svezia-accede-nato/?homepagePosition=0
Keyton, D. (2024, March 2). As Sweden joins NATO, it bids farewell to more than two centuries of neutrality. Retrieved from Associated Press News: https://apnews.com/article/sweden-nato-policy-of-neutrality-nonaligment-74ae8d15b2e27f9467634d7cde414625
Politico.eu. (2024, February 23). Stroking the ego: Hungary’s Orbán gives his nod to Sweden’s NATO bid. Retrieved from politico.eu: https://www.politico.eu/article/hungary-nato-sweden-viktor-orban-ulf-kristersson/
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