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Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson
Photo: Henrik Montgomery/AP
Sweden will apply to join NATO.
Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson announced this in the afternoon.
"There is much in Sweden worth defending, and Sweden is best defended in NATO," Andersson said at noon in the Swedish parliament.
The ruling Social Democrats had already advocated an application to join the military alliance last Sunday.
Finland will probably follow
It is expected that Finland will soon also speak out in favor of joining NATO.
President Sauli Niinistö and Prime Minister Sanna Marin had already done so last Thursday.
In a joint statement, the two politicians demanded that Finland apply for admission to the western military alliance "immediately".
Finland and neighboring Sweden are already close partners of NATO, but have not yet become official members.
However, Russia's invasion of Ukraine has sparked an intense NATO debate in both countries.
In the population there was a clear change of opinion towards a possible accession to the alliance.
Before a country can join NATO, all 30 current members must agree.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg had recently signaled several times that there was broad support for this within the alliance.
Turkey was the first and only NATO member state to object to Sweden and Finland joining the military alliance.
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan announced on Saturday that Turkey had "no positive opinion on it".
Russia's President Vladimir Putin said again in the afternoon that his country would react to the planned expansion of NATO to include Sweden and Finland.
NATO expansion is a problem, Putin said in Moscow.
Russia has no problems with the two Nordic countries.
But he will react to the expansion of the military infrastructure there.
In addition, Russia must also keep in mind that NATO wants to expand its global influence.
svs/dpa/Reuters
