The Swedish government has announced it will be speeding up its decision on whether or not to apply to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) by releasing a report on the topic two weeks earlier than expected.
Sweden’s Minister for Foreign Affairs, Ann Linde, stated on Thursday that a report on NATO membership will be released on May 13th, rather than the 31st as initially planned, speeding up any possible decision for the country to apply to join the military alliance.
“If Finland finally makes this decision to apply for membership, and everything points in that direction, especially after the parliamentary debate yesterday, it will of course have a major impact on our analysis,” Linde said, broadcaster SVT reports.
Finland is expected to make a decision on NATO membership sometime in the coming weeks, with Finnish president Sauli Niinistö stating that a decision is expected to be announced sometime prior to a NATO summit set to take place in June.
Sweden’s Defence Minister Peter Hultqvist also commented on the possibility of Sweden joining NATO, arguing that the country was not simply following Finland.
“Our process is Swedish, in a genuine sense, and is based on how different things in our environment affect Swedish security. That’s what we’re doing in this report,” Hultqvist said, adding: “Russia is the cause of it all, then how different actors act we take with us, including Finland’s position.”
Hultqvist went on to note that Russia may engage in reprisals over Sweden joining NATO: “These are things like cyber threats, hybrid threats, sabotage, undermining the state organization, it’s a whole catalogue of actions that could conceivably be taken by Russia.”
“I don’t know what they intend to do, I have no idea, but Europe is living in a threat situation and everything here has changed fundamentally – that’s what you need to take a position on,” he added.
In Finland, expert Charly Salonius-Pasternak, a senior researcher at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs, also warned that Russia may engage in retaliation over NATO membership, saying Russia may attempt to flood the country with illegal immigrants.
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