Swedish Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson will seek broad support for her NATO membership on Monday, announcing on Sunday that her party dropped its long-standing opposition to joining NATO following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Joining NATO a few months ago is still a long way off. Still, Russia’s attacks on its neighbours have prompted Sweden and Finland to reconsider their security needs and seek security in military alliances that broke away during the Cold War.

The Ukrainian war, which Moscow calls an extraordinary military operation, has killed thousands, displaced millions, undermined long-standing security policies and sparked a wave of public support for joining NATO in both countries.
After internal debates over the past week, the Social Democrats were the largest party in every election of the last century. Anderson said NATO’s entry was “the best thing for the safety of Sweden and the Swedish people”.

“Non-alignment is good for us, but we’ve concluded that it’s also bad for our future,” she said. Supporters of joining the coalition will now have a majority in parliament. In contrast, most of the opposition already supports it, and Anderson’s minority government will make a formal application later.

Finnish President Sauli Niinisto on Sunday confirmed the country’s intention to apply, saying the region would benefit. “We get security, and we also extend it to the Baltic region and the entire federation,” he told reporters gathered at the presidential palace in Helsinki.

In peacetime since the Napoleonic Wars, Sweden has been more reluctant to abandon non-alignment than Finland, which fought the Soviet Union in the 20th century. Widespread support in Sweden jumped to more than 60 per cent from about 40 per cent before the war. The membership application would herald a tense wait in the months required for ratification by all NATO members – which Turkey objected to, although NATO and the White House said they believed any security concerns could be resolved in the meantime.

On Sunday, British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss urged NATO allies to move quickly to integrate the new members. Finnish President Niinisto said on Sunday he was ready to hold talks with Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan about his concerns. As a NATO member, Turkey can veto new members. The two countries are already NATO partners, have participated in allied exercises for years, and abandoned strict neutrality when they joined the EU in 1995. But so far, they believe the best way to achieve peace is not to take sides openly.

Anderson warned Sunday that the country would be “vulnerable” in the application process until the league’s collective defence clause is covered. She did not specify what kind of threats were the cause for concern.
Russia has warned Sweden and Finland of “serious consequences” that it could deploy nuclear weapons and hypersonic missiles in the European enclave of Kaliningrad if they become NATO members.

The decision to join the NATO umbrella will be a setback for Moscow, which has said it is taking up arms to stop it as the war in Ukraine sparked an expansion of Russia’s border alliance. After the Finnish President announced his determination to join, the Kremlin said it was a hostile move threatening Russia and vaguely warned of “military technology and other retaliatory measures”.

Sweden has been rebuilding its military over the past decade, especially since Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014, bought US-made Patriot air defence missile systems and stationed troops on the Baltic Island of Gotland.
A cross-party parliamentary review on Friday said joining NATO would strengthen Sweden’s national security and help stabilize the Nordic and Baltic regions.