Sweden Joins NATO

Since Thursday last week Sweden is a proud member of NATO.  The most successful organisation for peace and security that has ever existed.  We are now an ally amongst allies.  After more than 200 years of military non-alignment, this is a historic step. 

But also, a very natural step.  We have been preparing for decades.  And in details the last two years.  With this membership, Sweden has come home. 

Home to the security cooperation of democracies.  Home to the security cooperation of our good neighbours. 

Today, I'd like to say thank you to all of our Allies.  We have chosen you, and you have chosen us.  All for one, one for all. ...

Sweden will be a safer country in NATO, and NATO will be a stronger alliance with Sweden in it.

By joining NATO, Sweden -- like Finland just before us -- has exercised our right to freely choose our own security arrangements. 

That invaluable right is at the core of the European security order -- so bravely being defended in Ukrainian battlefields, as we meet here in Brussels. ...

Sweden joining NATO is not the end of something -- it's a beginning.  I look forward to help making the world a safer and freer place together with all of our Allies.

-- Speech by Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson at a ceremony in Brussels to mark Sweden joining NATO, 11 March 2024