Sweden - March 2024

On 7 March, Sweden officially joined the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) as the 32nd member of the alliance. Sweden applied for membership in NATO on 18 May 2022, at the same time as Finland, following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Sweden’s accession was drawn out by delayed ratification by existing members, Türkiye and Hungary, who respectively approved Sweden’s membership in January and February 2024. On entering NATO, Sweden leaves behind 200 years of military non-alignment. A long history of close cooperation with NATO and the changing security situation in Europe have led to broad political support for joining NATO, with 269 out of 349 members of the Swedish Parliament voting in favour of Sweden’s accession to NATO.

Sources: Government Offices of Sweden (1), Government Offices of Sweden (2), SVT News, Reuters

On 9 March, a representative sample of 60 Swedish participants convened for the opening of Sweden’s first national citizens’ assembly on climate change. The assembly will consider means for Sweden to lower greenhouse gas emissions in order to meet its international climate commitments. The assembly is run by Fairtrans, a research programme delivered by a consortium of Swedish universities and research institutes. The deliberations will be supported by climate experts who will weigh in with diverse areas of knowledge. The citizens’ assembly will vote on the final recommendations and present their findings on 19 May 2024, including to Swedish policymakers such as the climate policy spokespersons of the parliamentary groups. Participants were selected to be representative of Sweden’s population based on factors such as age, gender, income and political views.

Sources: Stockholm University, Buergerrat, Stockholm Resilience Center, Fairtrans, SVT, Dagens Nyheter