Sweden could invoke NATO’s Article 4 and call an emergency alliance summit to respond to broken cables in the Baltic Sea. The request comes from the opposition Social Democrats who ask Stockholm to take a hard line.
“In the Baltic Sea there has been one accident after another. These various hybrid activities will not stop, and we cannot have a situation where we react to one accident after another. We need a comprehensive approach, an overall strategy by NATO,” said the party’s defense spokesman and former NATO minister Peter Hultqvist.
Article 4
Article 4 of NATO calls for the convening of an emergency summit, a more moderate version of Article 5, which instead requires members of the Alliance to go to war alongside an attacked country. Article 4 of NATO states that “the Parties shall consult each other whenever, in the opinion of either of them, the territorial integrity, political independence or security of either Party is threatened.”
The request to activate this procedure, i.e. the request for urgent consultations due to a threat, is not an act of war but is nevertheless an important step because it formalizes for the first time the risk that the conflict could affect the security of member countries. If a meeting were to be held under this mechanism, members would consider coordinating their response, but would still not be obliged to act.
The article has been invoked seven times since the birth of NATO in 1949, when Russia threatened Eastern European states and when Turkey feared growing instability in the Middle East. In 2014, following Russia’s annexation of Crimea, it was Poland that invoked it.
Nothing excluded
In response to the Social Democrats’ request, Sweden’s Foreign Minister Maria Malmer Stenergard said the government was following developments closely and that “nothing had been ruled out.” “That said, it is also important to keep a cool head,” he added, saying he “welcomes” NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte’s announcement that the Alliance will increase its presence in the Baltic Sea.
Sabotage
On Christmas Day an undersea telecommunications cable was damaged. This is the 658 megawatt (Mw) Estlink 2 cable, which connects the Finnish and Estonian electricity grids together with the 358 Mw Estlink 1. Finnish investigators are trying to understand whether a ship linked to Russia carried out sabotage.
Last Thursday, the nation’s authorities seized a Cook Islands-registered vessel called the Eagle S, which is believed to have caused the damage by dragging its anchor on the seabed, one of many such incidents in recent years. Sweden only recently joined NATO in March after pursuing a policy of neutrality since the early 19th century, including during World War II.
