Sweden and Finland formally applied to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) ahead of the NATO summit in Madrid on 29-30 June. As neighbors of Russia, Finland and Sweden assess the Ukraine invasion to have fundamentally shifted their own threat perceptions vis-à-vis Russia. Finland and Sweden already meet most military, political, and legal criteria to join NATO, likely shortening the technical aspect of accession. Most NATO members look likely to support Finland's and Sweden's memberships at the NATO summit in June. This post was written with contributions from Jeremy Domballe, a Maritime & Trade subject matter expert with S&P Global Market Intelligence.

Source: The North Africa Journal May 24, 2022 19:18 UTC