Sweden will not join NATO through a referendum – POLITICO
EU Commissioner for Home Affairs Ylva Johansson said on Tuesday that her home country Sweden should not decide whether she wants to join NATO via a referendum.
A referendum “would not be my primary choice”, Johansson said in a comprehensive interview at POLITICO 28 – Class of 2022 Dinner. “I think you really need to have a broad consensus among the majority … to have a broad political debate with all stakeholders in society.”
Sweden’s Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson earlier this month rejected calls from opposition parties for the country to join NATO after Russia invaded Ukraine, arguing that it would further destabilize Europe. Moscow has warned of “serious military policy consequences” if either Sweden or Finland join the military alliance.
In a vote was implemented Earlier this month, the number of Swedes who supported joining NATO exceeded those who opposed it for the first time. In Finland, support for joining the alliance has skyrocketed since the start of the Ukraine war, with a recent survey showing 62 percent to join.
Johansson also claimed that Sweden and Finland would probably make a joint decision to join the alliance, while emphasizing that such measures should be left to national governments.
While neither Finland nor Sweden are part of NATO, both countries are “enhanced opportunity partners” in the alliance and in 2018 signed a statement promising to strengthen their defense cooperation.
Johansson praised European countries for agreeing to temporarily grant extensive refugee rights to Ukrainian refugees within a week of the start of the war in Ukraine, but also acknowledged that EU interior ministers were initially reluctant to act. She also criticized the EU’s attitude towards refugees coming from the Middle East in 2015.
“It was really a failure for the European Union at that time in 2015, so it was really bad,” she said. “I promised myself that this would not happen again when I am in charge.”
The Swedish commissioner also reiterated that she was “very worried” about the trade in Ukrainian refugees entering Europe – with more than 3.5 million people flies Ukraine in recent weeks.
Johansson also said that legislation aimed at cracking down on child sexual abuse, which is still controversial because it would force technology companies including Facebook to report cases of abuse to the authorities, had been delayed until May due to “workload problems” related to the war in Ukraine. But Johansson said she was “happy [to] fight “to ensure legislation passes, saying it remains her” top priority. “