Joining the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in Sweden and Finland carries both the potential and actual risks to challenge the socioeconomic structure of the welfare state in Scandinavia and the broader Nordic region.
Today, all four Northern European countries – Sweden, Norway, Finland and Denmark – are members of NATO and are based on this, bound by economic and security decisions made throughout the Atlantic within this alliance.
Some have assumed that European security equations have little to do with the existence, function, and structure of welfare states. However, such assumptions are fundamentally wrong. A critical feature of the Nordic welfare state was its independence from collective economic decision-making across the European continent. Certain analysts have argued that Sweden will remain insulated from economic shocks within the European Union due to its lack of participation in the Eurozone, but its NATO membership effectively removes this insulation.
The problem is clear. NATO members recently agreed to allocate 5% of their gross domestic product (GDP) to collective defense spending. Sweden is not exempt from this commitment thanks to its NATO membership. The realization of this policy is synonymous with the emergence of a crisis within the welfare state structure. In fact, this was precisely the concern that was one of the main reasons why many Swedes opposed joining NATO. They correctly argued that collective economic security obligations within NATO undermine the structural and fundamental constants of welfare states and impose unnecessary financial burdens.
The erosion of traditional Swedish credit and economic mechanisms may honor the end of the “classical welfare state structure” of the West. At least from now on, we can argue that Europe will witness a new type of welfare state that is very different from what has been observed in the past.
The compulsory budget constraints imposed on Nordic countries by NATO’s commitment inevitably drive unnecessary changes within the welfare system. This naturally leads to a reduction in the level of public services available in Scandinavia and Scandinavia. The emergence of these new welfare structures in Europe is undoubtedly a long process, requiring payment of unexpected social and financial costs. Some of these policy decisions may even catalyze public protests in Sweden.
Dr. Mahdi Zolfaghari is an associate professor at the School of Asian Studies at Allameh Tabataba’i University.