Sweden to Give Up Neutrality and Seek Membership in EC
Traditionally nonaligned Sweden made a historic decision today to seek membership in the European Community because of the new climate created by the collapse of communism in Europe.
In a decision described by many speakers as the most important since World War II, 198 members of Parliament voted in favor and 105 against, with 26 abstentions and 20 members absent from the 349-seat chamber.
Only Sweden’s small leftist and environmental parties remain implacably opposed to EC membership.
The vote gave Prime Minister Ingvar Carlsson a mandate to knock on the EC’s door in Brussels, probably in 1991, but the government does not expect to be admitted before the end of 1994.
“The die is cast. There is no turning back now,” Conservative Party leader Carl Bildt said in the debate.
Sweden has long followed an independent, nonaligned foreign policy. It often weighed the possibility of joining the EC but the majority view had always been that this would conflict with the nation’s neutrality--an almost sacred concept throughout decades of Social Democrat-dominated governments.
But the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe, coinciding with a severe loss of competitiveness by Swedish industry, increasingly raised the question: Who does Sweden need to be neutral against?
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