Sweden, NATO and European Integration

On March 7 2024, Sweden acceded to the Washington Treaty to become a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. In so doing, Sweden abandoned its position as a militarily non-aligned state with the ambition to stay neutral in relation to the belligerents in armed conflicts, a position that had been maintained with relative consistency since 1814. Thus, the normative role of the law of neutrality for the formulation of Swedish foreign and security policy was brought to an end. In this chapter, it is argued that this change in the Northern European security policy landscape should be seen in a larger context of a successive shift, where the Swedish relationship to the integration processes of the European Union, in combination with cooperation within the frameworks of the Partnership for Peace and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, has played a central role for a reformulation of the policy of non-alliance. Thereby, the relationship between the policy and the law of neutrality was weakened step by step. The objective of this contribution is to reflect on, and contribute to a deeper understanding of, these legal/political processes, with a specific focus on the Swedish experience. It is my ambition to give input to the much-needed discussions on formulating a forward-reaching Swedish policy of alliance.