Sweden's Path to Join NATO Cleared

[canyonwalker]

In recent news about Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Turkey dropped its opposition to Sweden joining NATO.

"LOLWUT?" you might ask. "How is Turkey's opposition to Sweden joining an alliance a matter of Russia's war on Ukraine?"

The fact is, Sweden's effort to join NATO is entirely about Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Sweden, like its neighbor Finland, was happy to remain politically neutral outside of NATO for decades. Russia's (second) incursion, which started early last year, set alarm bells ringing, swinging enough popular support behind joining the Western alliance. Finland gained a clear path to join NATO in March.

Permission to join NATO requires unanimous approval from its member countries. Turkey was the last to grant approval for Finland's bid earlier this year. They demanded, and got, concessions to classify rebels opposing the autocratic rule of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan as terrorists. Turkey demanded similar concessions of Sweden, which just recently granted them.... But then, in the past week, Turkey added to its demands. It wants EU membership, too.

Diplomatic negotiations managed to unblock Sweden's bid to join NATO from waiting for EU membership for Turkey. Sweden did promise to support it, it seems. Frankly I'm opposed to Turkey joining the EU. The EU is not just about geography or free trade but about shared political bedrock values. Turkey has become a sham democracy. Yes, there's voting, yes there's a parliament and a judiciary, but President Erdogan has refashioned all of them, plus the country's laws, to support his authoritarian rule.

Comments

[ckd]

I honestly don't see any path to Turkish membership in the EU until a solution is found for Cyprus...and I'm far from optimistic there. (OTOH I'm generally pessimistic about things like this; I didn't foresee the way South Africa developed, expecting something far more deadly.)

[kjn]

Sweden joining NATO is not only about Russia's invasion of Ukraine. The timing has a lot to do with it, but there's been a strong but deep current within some parts of the Swedish establishment for joining NATO for a long time. Part of it might have been a desire to align more closely and openly with the USA, part of it a desire to stick a knife in the activist and reasonably anti-imperialistic and humanist foreign policy that characterised Sweden especially of the 70s and 80s.

Then back in 2020–2021 we suddenly got a huge increase in both Russian scaremongering (especially related to a Russian invasion of Gotland) and a little later that Sweden was "defence-less" without NATO. This was seen in nearly every major mass media here.

Frankly, there has been very little political discussion regarding NATO or actual security politics and policy here. There was some discussion that the Social Democritic Andersson government sent in a NATO application in order to defuse the question in the 2022 election, but it was made with a rather railroaded internal discussion within the social democratic party. Personally, I doubt that was the goal. With the victory of the right-wing parties with fascist support in the election, the question became moot anyway.

At least with Andersson as a prime minister, there was some hope for a principled Swedish stance against Turkey's demands. With Kristensson we have what is probably the most incompetent and corrupt Swedish government since the start of the Second World War.

[solarbird]

Hungary's no better. This isn't just a Turkish crisis.

[canyonwalker]

I agree, Hungary's a turd in the punchbowl of democratic countries right now. Another sham democracy. Though they're at least not opportunistically extracting concessions to admit countries to NATO (yet).