Sweden's ruling party poised to back NATO bid
www.reuters.com
Sweden's ruling Social Democrats were poised on Sunday to come out in favour of the country joining NATO, paving the way for an application soon after and abandoning decades of military non-alignment in the wake of Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

For all the talk about Sweden’s democracy, this decision has been made without consulting the people, by a party that, when they were voted in, explicitly refused to join NATO.

I will quote an article from the Communist Party’s weekly paper:

The whole thing looks like a sham process. The Social Democrat leadership has already decided on a Swedish application that Magdalena Andersson wants to submit before the NATO summit in Madrid on 29-30 June. The position has been driven by the NATO lobby, a blackmail procedure from Finland and by pressure from the Swedish industry.

On April 7, the Swedish government, the President of Finland and the countries’ commanders-in-chief secretly met business leaders from both Sweden and Finland, led by Jacob Wallenberg. The message was clear from the capitalists. The countries must join NATO, for the sake of business.

The defense group Saab, with Wallenberg’s company Investor as the largest owner, has already profited many millions on the ammunition delivered to Ukraine. A NATO membership would give the company access to more lucrative markets.

Just a few days after the secret meeting in Helsinki, the Social Democrat leadership presented a new line in the party and that a decision will be made at the end of May. It is hardly a coincidence.

The Social Democrats have no tradition of respecting democratic decisions. The congressional decision made in November that the party was against NATO membership was revoked last week and the party board announced that they now solely decide the issue.

And what should be said about Minister of Defense Peter Hultqvist? At the congress, he stood in the speaker’s chair and declared that: “there will be no application for membership [in NATO] as long as we have a Social Democratic government. I will definitely never, as long as I am Minister of Defense, be involved in such a process. I can guarantee that to everyone ”. But the words of a Social Democrat “weigh lightly”.

    • Knuten Hand ✊🏽OPM
      6·
      2 years ago

      Yes, we have been operating as a “NATO-aligned non-member” for quite some time which is a shame. One of the arguments I’ve heard: since we are practically already in NATO but not formally, we should just join fully so that we also get the protection from Article 5. The better course of action would be to move away from NATO and actually uphold the neutrality that we collectively lure ourselves that we still have. That won’t happen though as the Social Democrats just let the capitalists get away with almost everything these days (as is expected).