{"id":20762,"date":"2022-04-25T16:08:37","date_gmt":"2022-04-25T16:08:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/?p=20762"},"modified":"2022-04-25T16:08:37","modified_gmt":"2022-04-25T16:08:37","slug":"sweden-and-finland-agree-to-submit-nato-applications-say-reports","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/2022\/04\/25\/sweden-and-finland-agree-to-submit-nato-applications-say-reports\/","title":{"rendered":"Sweden and Finland agree to submit Nato applications, say reports"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sweden and Finland have agreed to submit simultaneous membership applications to the US-led Nato alliance as early as the middle of next month, Nordic media have reported.<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n
<\/div>\n
\"The<\/div>\n
\n
\n
\u2018There will be no way back\u2019: will war change Finland\u2019s pragmatic approach to Russia?<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

The Finnish daily Iltalehti said on Monday that Stockholm had \u201csuggested the two countries indicate their willingness to join\u201d on the same day, and that Helsinki had agreed \u201cas long as the Swedish government has made its decision\u201d.<\/p>\n

The Swedish newspaper Expressen cited government sources as confirming the report. The two countries\u2019 prime ministers said this month they were deliberating the question, arguing Russia\u2019s invasion of Ukraine had changed Europe\u2019s \u201cwhole security landscape\u201d and \u201cdramatically shaped mindsets\u201d in the Nordic region.<\/p>\n

Finland\u2019s prime minister, Sanna Marin, said then that her country, which shares a 1,300km (810 mile) border with Russia, would decide whether to apply to join the alliance \u201cquite fast, in weeks not months\u201d, despite the risk of infuriating Moscow.<\/p>\n

Her Swedish counterpart, Magdalena Andersson, said Sweden had to be \u201cprepared for all kinds of actions from Russia\u201d and that \u201ceverything had changed\u201d when Moscow attacked Ukraine. Russia has repeatedly warned both countries against the move.<\/p>\n

The Kremlin said it would be forced to \u201crestore military balance\u201d by strengthening its defences in the Baltic, including by deploying nuclear weapons, if the two countries decided to abandon decades of military nonalignment by joining Nato.<\/p>\n

Sweden\u2019s foreign minister, Ann Linde, said last week a wide-ranging security policy review would be concluded by 13 rather than 31 May as originally planned, adding that with Finland\u2019s analysis already published \u201cthere is now a lot of pressure\u201d.<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n
<\/div>\n
\"A<\/div>\n
\n
\n
Ukraine war puts new focus on Finland\u2019s network of bunker<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

Expressen said the simultaneous applications could be submitted in the week of 16 May, coinciding with a state visit to Stockholm by the Finnish president Sauli Niinist\u00f6. The Guardian could not independently confirm the reports.<\/p>\n

Recent opinion polls have shown as many as 68% of Finns are in favour of joining the alliance, more than double the figure before the invasion, with only 12% against. Polling in Sweden suggests a slim majority of Swedes also back membership.<\/p>\n

Both countries are officially nonaligned militarily, but became Nato partners \u2013 taking part in exercises and exchanging intelligence \u2013 after abandoning their previous stance of strict neutrality when they joined the EU in 1995 after the end of the cold war.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sweden and Finland have agreed to submit simultaneous membership applications to the US-led Nato alliance as early as the middle of next month, Nordic media have reported. \u2018There will be no way back\u2019: will war change Finland\u2019s pragmatic approach to Russia? The Finnish daily Iltalehti said on Monday that Stockholm had \u201csuggested the two countries […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":20763,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_post_source_name":"","_post_source_url":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[6728,11611,9204,6056,7711,5341,159,6621,5335,11638,5345,2264,5252,1152,11743,5572,6864,5340,4802,5395,6666,11057,3805,3174,5807,3457,6454,5655,6808,1378,9209,5180,5521,6348,5251,5724,3954],"class_list":["post-20762","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world-news","tag-alliance","tag-applications","tag-border","tag-bunker","tag-cold","tag-cold-war","tag-eu","tag-europe","tag-finland","tag-forced","tag-foreign-minister","tag-government","tag-invasion","tag-kremlin","tag-majority","tag-military","tag-ministers","tag-moscow","tag-nato","tag-neutrality","tag-nuclear","tag-nuclear-weapons","tag-president","tag-prime-minister","tag-risk","tag-russia","tag-sanna-marin","tag-security","tag-shares","tag-sweden","tag-swedish","tag-ukraine","tag-ukraine-war","tag-us","tag-war","tag-weapons","tag-will"],"blocksy_meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20762","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20762"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20762\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20763"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20762"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20762"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20762"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}