Journal of European Integration History – Revue d'histoire de l'

64Mikael af Malmborgrationality and sentimentality, a kind of enlightened self interest. As the FinnishMinister of Defence, Elisabet Rehn, recently explained, Sweden was for Finland “adiscreet escort on the insecure waters of the postwar world”. 1The Emergence of the Nordic BalanceIn the early postwar era the Scandinavian states harboured hopes of bridging thegap between East and West. An economic expression of this ambition was theSwedish credit agreement with Russia in 1945-46. The granting of credit had economicand political motives, but the importance of good relations with the USSRwas also emphasised. This was the first occasion in the postwar era that the Finlandargument was referred to in the making of Sweden’s foreign policy. 2 With the samelogic Sweden and Norway at the Paris conferences in 1947-48 made great efforts tohinder the erection of a new and exclusively Western European organisation. Theypreferred that aid should be organised by the UN’s Economic Commission forEurope (ECE). Suggestions for a European customs union which came up duringthe conference were refuted by Sweden and Norway as constituting an element inbloc formation. As a countermove, the Scandinavian countries opened discussionson a Scandinavian customs union in 1947-1948. This question became, for the followingtwelve years, the object of extensive analyses, although it failed to lead toany concrete result.The Swedish striving for Nordic cooperation in the postwar era was partly ameans of enhancing national security and giving the policy of neutrality a widerbuffer than was allowed by a purely national dimension. 3 At an early stage of thecold war Sweden took an initiative for defence cooperation between the Scandinavianstates. In the spring of 1948 the Swedish government approached the Danishand Norwegian governments and proposed the establishment of a Scandinaviandefence alliance. At this stage all three Scandinavian states were still non-aligned,and the Swedish proposal was aimed at creating a neutral buffer, without anyexplicit link to the emerging military block. While neutrality was strongly endorsedin Sweden, where it had been a success story, Danes and Norwegians had more reasonto be doubtful about the ability of an independent Scandinavian block to providesufficient security. Norway in particular made her participation conditional onAmerican guarantees of aid. Negotiations in late 1948 and early 1949 proved fruitless,and when Norway turned down the Swedish proposal Denmark followed suit,1. See: K. ZETTERBERG, I skuggan av Stalin. En säkerhetspolitisk balansgång. Sveriges bevakningav Finlands öde 1944-49, Stockholm 1995, p. 135.2. B. KARLSSON, Handelspolitik eller politisk handling. Sveriges handel med öststaterna 1946-1952,Göteborg 1992, pp. 40, 50-51, 120, 125.3. See further: M. af MALMBORG, Den ståndaktiga nationalstaten. Sverige och den västeuropeiskaintegrationen 1945-1959 [The Resilient Nation-State. Sweden and West European Integration, 1945-1959], Lund 1995, ch. 10.