Photo by Linus Mimietz on Unsplash
A senior MEP has welcomed Sweden’s accession to NATO.
Danuta Hubner, a Polish member, told this site: “Back in the 16th century Poland and Sweden acting together deprived Russia of its access to the Baltic Sea.”
The former EU commissioner and Government Minister, added, “Now we have a chance again to be together in seeing Russia for what it is.”
Dr Denis MacShane, a former Europe Minister under Tony Blair in the UK, also told this site: “Swedish social democrats were always in front line against Stalin’s nationalist imperialism. Now again they stand with European values against the oppression of today’s Stalin – Vladimir Putin.”
The Swedish flag was raised at NATO’s Brussels Headquarters for the first time on Monday (11 March) in a ceremony to mark the country’s membership of the Alliance.
Sweden became NATO’s 32nd Ally.
It was only after Hungary dropped its earlier opposition that Sweden could join the alliance.
Hungarian President Tamas Sulyok last week approved Sweden’s accession, clearing the way for Sweden to become NATO’s latest member.
Accession has been widely welcomed including by Swedish Defence Minister Pal Jonson.
Jonson said, “It is tremendously important and hopefully that we will now become members.”
“It will be good for Sweden and it will be good for NATO. It will be good for stability in the entire Euro-Atlantic area that Sweden can become a full-fledged member of NATO.”
The accession of Sweden, which has not been at war since 1814, is said to be the most significant expansion of NATO since it took in members from eastern Europe after the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991.
The accession is a blow to President Vladimir Putin and Russia now faces an almost unbroken chain of NATO members to its west stretching from the Black Sea to the Arctic.
Meanwhile, the European Conservatives and Reformists in the EU parliament are calling on the EU and Member States to step up efforts to reunite Ukrainian children who, it says, have been “abducted by Russia with their families.”
Polish MEP Jadwiga Wiśniewska, speaking on behalf of the ECR Group, said Russia was “committing genocide against the Ukrainian people according to international definitions.” She called for tougher sanctions and an immediate halt to food imports from Russia to hit the Putin regime.”
