Finland and Sweden have officially applied to join NATO, the world's biggest military alliance, ditching their decades-long policy of neutrality amid security concerns over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
It is true that these two countries’ neutrality has served them well over the years – Sweden has avoided military alliances for over 200 years, while Finland adopted neutrality after World War II – but that was before February 24, when Russia launched a brutal, unprovoked and illegal war in Ukraine.
Public opinion in these two Nordic countries has now shifted massively in favour of NATO membership and understandably so.
Finland, which shares a 1,340-kilometre border with Russia, and Sweden, whose Gotland island lies around 330 kilometres north of Kaliningrad, the headquarters of Russia’s Baltic Fleet, looked on in horror as Ukraine was invaded and left to fight on its own.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has only himself to blame for this NATO expansion. Ironically, one of the ways Putin justified the war in Ukraine was that it was necessary to prevent NATO’s expansion up to Russia’s borders. Now, because of the invasion, the alliance is poised to establish itself along Russia’s northwest flank, sharing a huge border with Finland. Unknowingly, Putin has given NATO a new raison d'être.
In reality, EU members Sweden and Finland are already close partners of NATO and have taken part in exercises and shared intelligence with the alliance. But NATO membership would bind them to Article 5 of the treaty, which states that an attack on any member is an attack on all, thus committing members to defend each other.
In view of Sweden’s and Finland’s decision to discard their neutrality, surely the time has come for us in Malta to have an open and honest debate about our own neutrality and security needs
The membership applications must now be approved by all the member countries. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey, a key NATO member, has expressed his country’s reservations over this new enlargement wave, saying both countries have given refuge to Kurdish ‘terrorists’. Like all the other member states, Turkey has the power to veto these new entries, so some sort of compromise with Ankara will have to be worked out.
Should Turkey go so far as to prevent Finland and Sweden from joining NATO, there is nothing to stop individual alliance members from signing a defence agreement with these two countries.
This option, after all, is what Ukraine is proposing for itself as an alternative to NATO membership.
Pursuing membership in NATO, particularly during this tense period in European history, is not risk-free and Russia has already warned it would deploy nuclear weapons in its Baltic exclave of Kaliningrad, which borders Lithuania and Poland, if Finland and Sweden join the alliance.
Increased cyberattacks by Moscow are also expected and Moscow has already cut off its electricity and natural gas supply to Finland. Europe must, therefore, prepare itself thoroughly to deal with any Russian reaction to the alliance’s expansion.
In view of Sweden’s and Finland’s decision to discard their neutrality, surely the time has come for us in Malta to have an open and honest debate about our own neutrality and security needs.
We know the EU is not a defence organisation and the bloc’s mutual defence clause, which requires “other EU countries to come to the support and aid, with all possible means, of a member state under armed attack”, is not the same as NATO’s Article 5, as Finland and Sweden have well understood.
We cannot ignore the fact that the war has changed the security situation in Europe. True, Malta is not geographically close to Russia but this does not mean we should not rethink our defence needs or have a debate about what type of relationship with NATO or individual NATO members best suits us.