The Nordic Countries and the European Security and Defence Policy

8 THE NORDIC COUNTRIES AND THE ESDPally European setting together with the integrated Western states was the WesternEuropean Union (WEU), which in the mid-1990s accepted 10 CentralEuropean countries (including the Baltics states) as ‘associate partners’, andallowed non-NATO EU members and non-EU NATO members to join in itswork as ‘observers’ and ‘associate members’, respectively. 22In the Nordic region, too, the early 1990s were a time for countries to rethinktheir institutional choices and strategic affiliations. New room for manoeuvrewas offered most obviously to Finland and Sweden, given the demise of theoriginal rationale for a ‘Nordic balance’ and the questions that began to beraised—also in other parts of Europe—about the logic of ‘neutral’ status itself(‘neutral from what?’). Indeed, both these countries took independent decisionsin the 1990s to change the official description of their defence policy from‘neutral’ to ‘militarily non-aligned’ or ‘militarily non-allied’. 23 Sweden appliedfor membership of the EU in 1991 and Finland in 1992, and both duly accededin 1995. Finland’s motives clearly included an interest in the EU’s ability toprovide a kind of ‘political’ or ‘existential’ security, including the high probabilitythat other EU members would want to help Finland in the event of adirect Russian threat. For Sweden this argument was less explicit and somewhatless relevant, although Swedish Government did see potential in the EU toenhance the value of its own positive contributions to international security. Incontrast to their Baltic neighbours, however, Finland and Sweden chose not tomake parallel applications for membership of NATO. Instead, they joined thePFP, profiling themselves within it as givers rather than takers of aid andguidance, and seeking the added value (and credit) they could gain for theirdefence aid programmes for the Baltic states by wider coordination with partners.24 In practice, Finland and Sweden (like Austria) both made extensive useof the Partnership and Review Process within the PFP to get information andadvice from NATO on adapting their own forces for maximum interoperabilityin NATO-led peace operations. They leveraged their observer status in the22 The WEU associate partners are Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia (all from1994) and Slovenia (from 1996). The observers are Austria (from 1995), Denmark (1992; the only NATOobserver), Finland (1995), Ireland (1992) and Sweden (1995). The associate members are the CzechRepublic (from 1999), Hungary (1999), Iceland (1992), Norway (1992), Poland (1999) and Turkey(1992).23 Finland’s 1997 Defence White Paper introduced the current description of the country’s status as‘military non-alliance’. A new security policy formula agreed between Sweden’s parliamentary parties inFeb. 2002 defined Sweden as ‘militarily non-aligned’ (in Swedish, the last word means literally ‘alliancefree’).Finnish Government, The European Security Development and Finnish Defence: Report by theCouncil of State to Parliament on 17 March 1997 (Council of State: Helsinki, 1997); Lindholm, R. H.,‘Har Sverige en säkerhetspolitisk doktrin?’, Kungliga Krigsvetenskapsakademien Handlingar och Tidskrift—TheRoyal Swedish Academy of War Sciences Proceedings and Journal, vol. 207, no. 3 (2003),pp. 105–10; and see Forsberg, T. and Vaahtoranta, T., ‘Inside the EU, outside NATO: paradoxes of Finland’sand Sweden’s post-neutrality’, European Security, vol. 10, no. 1 (spring 2001), pp. 68–93.24 This was material assistance (in cash and kind) for the build-up of Baltic national defence capabilitiesand for tri-Baltic or regional initiatives such as the Baltic Defence College in Tartu. Karlsson, M. andKnudsen, O. F., ‘Sweden and the Baltic states’ and Visuri, P., ‘Finland and the Baltic states’, eds B. Huldtet al., Finnish and Swedish Security: Comparing National Policies, SI Serie R: 1 2001 (Försvarshögskolan:Stockholm, 2001), pp. 180–203, 204–25.