New Prime Minister of Sweden Magdalena Andersson said her country does not intend to seek NATO membership. And still, Sweden's military neutrality is a fiction, as it has long been tied to NATO by a number of military treaties.

Presenting the new Swedish government's declaration in the Parliament, Andersson stated: "Our non-participation in military alliances serves our country well and contributes to stability and security in northern Europe. Sweden will not apply for membership in NATO. Sweden will not take a passive stance if another Nordic country or EU member state suffers a disaster or an attack, and we expect these countries to act in the same way if Sweden is affected. The European Union is the most important arena for Sweden’s foreign policy and security. Our current chairmanship of the OSCE gives Sweden the opportunity to protect the European security order."

Sweden has been calling itself neutral for over a century. At the core of this strongly supported image is its neutrality declared during WWI and WWII. If during World War I Sweden heard no major claims about it, World War II saw official Stockholm play a double game, and therefore the word "neutrality" should be taken in quotation marks as regards back-then Sweden. The country was the key iron ore supplier to Nazi Germany, which, among other things, largely brought about the tragedy of Leningrad. Moreover, the Germans used the territory of Sweden to transfer troops and weapons to neighboring occupied Norway.

For the time being, Sweden's military neutrality is also a fiction. Not being a de jure member of NATO, Sweden has long tied itself to the bloc. Sweden is by no means tormented by the question of becoming part of NATO or not. Formally, the country is constantly discussing the issue, and in fact, the dilemma for Sweden only lies between the actual informal membership and a legally binding document signed by every member of the alliance.

There is a whole pile of treaties that Sweden has signed in recent decades and which have finally deprived it of a really neutral status. As a member of the EU, Sweden cannot be considered militarily neutral. The fact is that one of the fundamental EU military security documents is the Lisbon Treaty of 2007, which stipulates military cooperation between the EU countries. It was about this treaty that Andersson spoke when saying that "the European Union is the most important arena for Sweden’s foreign policy and security."

But at the same time, the EU itself has several joint agreements with NATO. The EU considers NATO a military guarantor of its security. The European Union Global Strategy (EUGS) adopted in 2016 gives impetus to the European Union as regards security and defense in complementarity with NATO and all the partners. The same EUGS mentions deeper transatlantic bond and partnership with NATO. The European Union Global Strategy has a long history, being a revision of the Common Security and Defense Policy of the EU (CSDP), signed back in 1998. In 1994, Sweden joined NATO's Partnership for Peace program. And in 2016, the Swedish parliament approved the so-called Memorandum of Understanding (Värdlandsavtalet) signed with NATO two years earlier. It makes it easier for Sweden to get support from NATO in case of a crisis or war in its territory or at the Swedish borders.

Opponents of the theses proposed may object that Sweden has no formal obligations to NATO. But that's a fiction, too. Obligations do exist, although disguised by various political euphemisms. Take, for instance, the Solidarity Declaration (Den Svenska Solidaritetsförklaringen) adopted in 2009, which contains that country's defense doctrine. It reads that Sweden undertakes to engage in the EU security policy under the Lisbon Treaty (2007) and the NATO Partnership for Peace program. And further on: "Sweden will not remain passive if another EU Member State or a Nordic country suffers a disaster or an attack. We expect these countries to act in the same way if Sweden is affected. We must therefore be able to both give and receive support, civilian as well as military." An almost word-for-word extract from the parliament speech by Magdalena Andersson when presenting the new government's declaration. And the EU keeps insisting on its "complementarity" with NATO. So where is Swedish neutrality?

It is fair to say that some people in Sweden do support their country's return to genuine neutrality to ensure both non-participation in military blocs and protect the country from possible armed conflicts, wherever they may be. In particular, Swedish MPs from the Left Party demand to stop any rapprochement with NATO for the sake of confidence in Sweden's "out-of-bloc policy". But so far, trust in "neutrality" declared by Stockholm is definitely out of question.