Sweden’s Collective Defence Obligations or this is Not a Collective Defence Pact (or Is It?): Considerations of International and Constitutional Law

Abstract

This article analyses the content of the mutual defence obligation contained in the EU Treaty Article 42(7) in relation to the Swedish constitutional rule on the sending of armed forces abroad and the emerging ’deepened defence cooperation’ between Sweden and Finland. The article tries to understand the prevailing Swedish position in legal terms and suggests an alternative flexible way on Sweden’s part of conceiving the binding force of Article 42(7). The question is whether the EU Treaty contains an international obligation of a quality to activate a provision in the Swedish Constitution entitling the government to decide on its own, without having to seek the otherwise necessary approval by Parliament, to send Swedish armed forces to other countries for instance on a mission of collective self-defence. The possibility of looking at the EU Treaty and the Swedish Instrument of Government in this way is not considered in any of the Swedish official inquiries into the Swedish security and defence policy of which there have been quite a few recently.