In Stockholm, several parties opposed to the Alliance come back to their position, while in Helsinki the government is considering membership.
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A few weeks ago, the leader of the Swedish far-right, Jimmie Akesson, did not want to hear about NATO membership. And then, he volted, Saturday, April 9th. In an interview with the Svenska Dagbladet newspaper, the boss of the Democrats of Sweden claims that he is ready to support a Swedish candidacy, if Finland decides to join the Atlantic Alliance. To explain its turn to 180 degrees, it mentions the fact that Helsinki can submit an application for membership “soon”.
This turnaround was discussed, Monday, April 11, by the party management at a meeting convened urgently. At the exit, Aron Emilsson, responsible for foreign policy, said that the Democrats of Sweden were “for NATO membership under conditions”. He has appointed two: the fact that Finland adheres and the security situation requires it. Because the party’s reserves towards the Atlantic Alliance have not disappeared. These include Turkey’s presence among NATO members and the sending of young Swedes to fight in foreign countries.
According to Mr. Emilsson, the Democrats of Sweden are in contact with the real Finnish. In Helsinki, extreme right formation also changed position. On March 30, an internal vote, carried out in the parliamentary group, showed that twenty-nine of its members were now in favor of membership and three against (four abstained and two were absent). A few days earlier, the current president of the party, Riikka Purra, and his predecessor, Jussi Halla-Aho, had both expressed their support for an entry into NATO.
Decision “before the summer “in Stockholm
But it’s not just in the ranks of the far right as the lines move. Monday, the Swedish Social Democratic Party announced that it would launch a great “dialogue on security policy”, with its activists, to see if it was necessary to modify the position adopted at the congress in November 2021 , Against membership. The Secretary of the Party, Tobias Baudin, assured that a decision would be taken “before the summer”, because then the legislative elections, planned on 9 September, and the Social Democrats want to avoid the debate on all costs. NATO does not compete the ballot.
For the right and the extreme right, the calendar is not ambitious enough. In recent days, the Social Democrat government, led by Magdalena Andersson, has also been under the fire of criticism, accused by the opposition to lack clarity, as well as by certain editorialists and experts in security. On March 8, M me Andersson stated that Sweden’s accession, “in the current state, would destabilize even more the situation”. Then, on March 30, in the emission “30 Minute”, on the SVT chain, she said she “did not exclude an adhesion to NATO”.
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