“We are leaving one era and entering a new one,” Andersson said. A parliamentary majority had previously voted in favor of membership in the western military alliance. Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a “reaction” from Moscow.
The Greens and the Left are against it. The two parties together have 43 of 349 seats in the Swedish Parliament. The plan is to submit the application together with Finland in the coming days, Andersson said.
“There is much in Sweden that is worth defending, and in our opinion that is best done in NATO,” Social Democrat Andersson said at a joint press conference with the leader of the bourgeois opposition party Moderaterna, Ulf Kristersson, on Monday. “We are living in dangerous times right now,” said Kristersson, who spoke of a “historic day”. The ruling Social Democrats already advocated an application to join the military alliance on Sunday.
Video: An assessment by ORF expert Peter Fritz on the possible NATO accession of Finland and Sweden.
Debate in Finland
The government of neighboring Sweden, Finland, announced on Sunday that it intends to apply for NATO membership. A majority for this in the Finnish parliament is considered secure. Since Monday morning, a debate has been going on in Parliament in Helsinki about the membership application for the military alliance. There was still no end in sight in the afternoon. However, a majority in Parliament for the application is considered safe.
Both countries are thus giving up a long tradition of military non-alignment. The admission process starts when Finland and Sweden have submitted their applications to NATO headquarters in Brussels. All 30 states must agree to join.
You have received signals from different countries that they want to make a decision as soon as possible, said Swedish Defense Minister Peter Hultqvist on Swedish television. A solution was to be found with Turkey, which had expressed criticism of the accession of Sweden and Finland. “We will send a delegation that will have discussions and dialogue with Turkey to see how we can resolve this issue and what the real issue is,” Hultqvist said. “But the signal we got from NATO is that there is agreement that both Sweden and Finland should be there.”
Video: An assessment by the political scientist Heinz Gärtner on the possible NATO accession of Finland and Sweden.
Putin announces reaction
Russian President Vladimir Putin again stated that his country would respond to the planned NATO expansion to include Sweden and Finland. The expansion is a problem, said Putin in Moscow. Russia has no problems with the two Nordic countries. However, he will react to the expansion of the military infrastructure there. In addition, Russia must also keep in mind that NATO wants to expand its global influence.
Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov described the possible admission of the two Nordic countries to NATO as a “serious mistake with far-reaching consequences”. This would increase military tensions, Ryabkov warned, according to the Interfax agency. Speaking to the two Scandinavian countries, he added: “You should have no illusions that we’ll just put up with it.”
Admission to NATO would be a historic turning point for Sweden and Finland after decades of alliance neutrality. A unanimous vote by NATO and the ratification of the alliance expansion by the parliaments of all 30 previous member states are required for their accession. At a meeting of foreign ministers in Berlin at the weekend, leading representatives of NATO and its member states promised Finland and Sweden a speedy admission process.
- NATO also benefits from the enlargement >> A comment from foreign policy editor Clemens Schuhmann [OÖNplus]
Source: Nachrichten
