Former NATO chief says Sweden, Finland should apply for membership ‘now’

With both Sweden and Finland seeking to become members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), a former secretary-general of the military alliance has said that the time for both the countries to join the intergovernmental partnership is ‘now’ as Russia is ‘preoccupied’ with its ongoing invasion of Ukraine.

“As far as Finland and Sweden are concerned, I think there’s a window of opportunity for them to join, exactly now, as Russian President Vladimir Putin is preoccupied in Ukraine. He can’t do anything about it,” former NATO secretary-general Anders Fogh Rasmussen told CNBC on Saturday.

If not done now, both Finland and Sweden would be exposed to Russian ‘intimidation and threats’, Rasmussen warned. “This is because it could take months for the accession protocol to be completed as parliaments of each of NATO’s 30 member states will have to ratify the accession protocol, and it will take some months to do that,” the former Danish prime minister explained.

In view of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which, in part, was due to the former’s desire to join the Brussels-headquartered alliance, Sweden and Finland began discussing the possibility of abandoning their long-term neutrality and join NATO. In March, Jens Stoltenberg, the incumbent NATO secretary-general, said he would ‘gladly’ welcome them, and even fast-track their membership applications should they decide to come on board.

NATO members–28 European states, the United States and Canada–are bound to defend each other in case of an attack by a third party. In Ukraine’s case, individual NATO states have been helping the east European nation in its fight against Russian aggression; Moscow launched the war on February 24.

As per an estimation by the United States, Finland is likely to take a final decision on applying for membership this month itself while Sweden may submit a formal application by the end of June.