“EPPO, or not EPPO?” That was the question : - Sweden's path from outsider to insider in the European Public Prosecutor’s Office

This thesis examines Sweden’s shift in attitude toward the European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO), from negative to positive. With the country’s historical attitude towards further deepened EU cooperations, it’s not surprising that Sweden initially didn’t want to be a part of the EPPO. In 2013 Sweden said no to EPPO and the same thing happened again in 2017. In 2019 the Swedish government reversed its position and decided that Sweden would join the enhanced cooperation which the country then did in 2024. With historical institutionalism as a framework and process tracing as method, this paper tests three predictions about causal mechanisms behind the Swedish turn on the EPPO issue in 2019. This thesis contributes to research on differential integration (DI) and how domestic processes contribute to initial outsiders becoming insiders. The results show that the Swedish government, consisting of the Social Democrats and the Green Party, changed its preferences in foreign policy in the beginning of 2017. The Social Democrats' political guidelines from 2017 stated that they want to become a more active member in EU cooperation to strengthen democracy and the principles of the rule of law internationally. This contributed to the changed view of a Swedish EPPO membership from negative to positive.