Finland/Sweden - Russia/Europe etc etc
Traditional Scandinavian neutrality was shattered by the Soviet invasion of Finland in 1939 and Nazi Germany’s occupation of Denmark and Norway in 1940. Britain prevented the Germans from extending their occupation of Denmark to Iceland, which became an independent republic in 1944, or to Greenland (77). The Finns, hoping to regain the territory the USSR had seized, joined Germany in attacking it in 1941. Only Sweden remained neutral throughout the 1939–45 war.
After 1945 the Scandinavians sought to rebuild their grouping. A Nordic Council was set up, as a means of consultation between ministers and members of parliament from Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden. A Scandinavian defence union was also discussed, but Denmark, Iceland and Norway, fearing that this would not provide enough security, chose instead to join the North Atlantic alliance in 1949.
Their fears arose largely from the Soviet Union’s annexation of the three small Baltic states (18) and its grip on Poland and East Germany, which brought a large part of the Baltic Sea’s shores under its control. It had also annexed Finland’s only Arctic port, Petsamo (now Pechenga), and it built large naval, air and army bases in the Kola Peninsula. In 1948 it put pressure on Norway, and marred the Finns’ neutrality by making them promise to help defend the USSR in certain circumstances. From time to time it renewed its pressure on Finland and, indirectly, on Sweden. In the 1980s, Sweden was troubled by Soviet submarines’ furtive entries into its coastal waters (one ran aground near a Swedish naval base).
Soviet pressure on Finland blocked attempts to form a Nordic economic union.
Denmark joined the European Community in 1973; Finland and Sweden joined in 1995. The Norwegians, in two referendums, voted to stay out. Iceland did not seek membership. (Both countries are within the European free trade area [12].) When Denmark joined, its self-governing Faroe islands (22) stayed out; when the Danes gave Greenland self-government, Greenland withdrew from the EC.
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