The Kremlin said today that the possible accession of Sweden and Finland to NATO would not bring stability to Europe, Reuters reported.
“We have repeatedly stated that the Alliance remains an instrument of confrontation and its further enlargement will not bring stability to the European continent,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told a news conference when asked about Sweden and Finland joining the pact.
A senior State Department official said last week that the prospect of Finland and Sweden joining NATO had become part of a discussion between Alliance defense ministers in Brussels.
Sweden and Finland join NATO within months
Sweden and Finland can join NATO as early as the summer. This was reported by The Times, citing its sources. Finland is expected to apply for membership in the North Atlantic Alliance in June, followed by Sweden, the newspaper said, quoted by BGNES.
The Swedish and Finnish authorities are working together to reach a consensus in their countries on NATO membership, but each country will make the final decision on its own. Earlier, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said the possible accession of Sweden and Finland to NATO was one of the most discussed topics at a meeting of NATO foreign ministers in Brussels on April 6th and 7th.
Finland may decide to apply for NATO membership in May, the Iltalehti newspaper reported on April 7th. On April 14, the newspaper said, the Finnish cabinet will publish an addendum to its report on foreign policy and security. Finnish parliamentary committees will start discussing it after the Easter holidays. The newspaper emphasizes that the position of the Finnish government on NATO membership will not be explicitly stated in the text of the addendum.
The newspaper’s sources suggest that the Council of Ministers will decide on NATO in the first two weeks of May. The information will then be passed on to NATO in Brussels. Finnish Foreign Minister Pekka Haavisto told reporters on April 7th that if Finland applied, NATO’s accession process could take several months to a year.
The ruling Swedish Social Democratic Workers’ Party is now discussing the country’s internal membership in NATO. Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson said she no longer ruled out the possibility of her country reconsidering its non-alignment policy and joining the alliance. She has said many times before that freedom from military alliances serves Sweden well, but now she said that “when redrawing the security policy map, we need to re-analyze and make decisions based on that.”
