Turkey has given the green light to admit Sweden into NATO and as it looks now, it is only a matter of time before Sweden formally becomes a member of the defense alliance.
A good day for Sweden, thought Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson (M) after Erdogan’s announcement on Monday. But not everyone agrees.
Kerstin Bergeå, who chairs the association Swedish Freds, describes it as a “historical misprioritization”.
– From today we will then be protected by nuclear weapons because that is NATO’s policy. It is really something that Sweden has worked to disarm and Sweden must continue to do that, she says.
Criticism: Lack of analyses
Membership in NATO only leads to increased polarization and increased militarization, according to Bergeå.
– NATO does not make us safer, it does not make the world safer, she says.
She is also critical of the fact that there have not been sufficient impact analyzes of what it means to become part of NATO.
– This decision has been taken very quickly and is a huge turnaround, and we haven’t had time to talk about what it means for Sweden to join a nuclear weapons alliance, she says.
Stenevi: Embarrassingly mishandled
In the Swedish Riksdag, only the Left Party and the Green Party have been opposed to membership. MP spokeswoman Märta Stenevi signs Twitter that the NATO process has been “embarrassingly mishandled from day one” and that Erdogan and Turkey have gained an “unreasonably large influence over Swedish domestic politics”.
“However, it is with sadness that I note that Sweden is no longer a voice for freedom and democracy, but instead a silent partner to an authoritarian regime,” she writes.
V leader Nooshi Dadgostar also directs a boot at the protracted process.
“If other parties had listened to the Left Party’s warnings last spring about the risks of joining a military alliance with Turkey, this process could have been better,” she writes on Twitter.