At the Environmental Party’s congress in Örebro, the party has decided to accept possible Swedish NATO membership.
It is a clear change of position from a party that has historically been vocal critics of NATO.
Now the party will not push for a Swedish exit once Sweden has joined.
But not everyone in the party agrees.
– NATO is a political global stance. It starts from a bipolar, historically outdated view of the world where you are evil or good and have to choose a side, says Lotta Hedström, former spokeswoman for the Green Party between 1999 and 2002.
The MP and the Left Party were the only parties that voted no when the Riksdag in March supported Swedish NATO membership with a broad majority.
“For our own safety”
Rasmus Ling, Member of Parliament and spokesperson for migration policy, thinks that the Green Party should go even further and fully support NATO.
– I think Sweden should be involved. Partly for our own safety, but also so that we, together with others, can defend ourselves against a country that has shown how they act, he says.
– The application has been submitted and it has been decided, but we must take a position as a party on what we think regardless of what others think. We need to be able to discuss what Sweden’s role in NATO should be.
He mentions other green parties, not least the Greens in Finland, which swung and said yes. Issues such as nuclear disarmament are also important to be able to influence from within the alliance, he believes.
– It took quite a few years before we changed our mind about EU membership and approved it, and I think we should do it faster now so that we can get a better idea of what Sweden is going to use NATO for.
MP’s leadership says no
The MP leadership’s stance was precisely that the party should not push for a withdrawal.
Party board member and EU parliamentarian Pär Holmgren does not think that the Swedes’ security is strengthened by joining.
– In any case, it would not make Sweden safer, as I see it. But it doesn’t have to become more unsafe either, it depends on how we manage the membership.
Alice Bah Kuhnke, also an EU parliamentarian, says she stands behind the Riksdag’s decision from March.
– Now it is de facto that Sweden has decided that we will become a member of NATO, and then we environmentalists stand behind the decision that the Riksdag has made.