EC/EU Membership and Austria, Sweden and Finland: Neutrality Redefined With European Norms?

Apstrakt

Based on sociological institutionalism and approaching neutrality from a political perspective, this article investigates domestic political debates on neutrality in Austria, Sweden and Finland. The aim was to answer the question how their concepts of neutrality were reconceptualised in relation to European norms of peace, democracy, liberty, human rights and rule of law during their EC/EU membership applications. In the Austrian case, neutrality was framed to be compatible with membership due to its same embedded normative aspects as the European norms. However, despite similar norms, Swedish neutrality was not argued to be adaptable to the European norms because of the notion of national autonomy and exceptionalism associated with neutrality. Finally, Finnish neutrality, first and foremost conceived and develop ed out of security concern, was not redefined with reference to European norms as such, but rather considered a security tool to be abandoned once the threat from the East disappeared in order to get fully integrated with the Western Europe. This article comes to the conclusion that neutrality is not merely a matter of security, but also embedded with cultural dimension, resulting in different reactions with European norms, hence different interpretations of neutrality. This would in the future have a certain implication on those countries’ roles in the Common Foreign and Security Policy.