Turkey has agreed to Finland’s admission to NATO as the last member country. Shortly before midnight on Thursday, a large majority in the Turkish parliament voted to include the northern European country in the defense alliance. All 30 NATO members have thus approved Finnish membership. On the other hand, Turkey continues to block Sweden’s admission, and Hungarian ratification is still missing. Nevertheless, people in Stockholm remain confident.
Finland shares a 1340 km border with Russia. Under the impression of the Russian war of aggression in Ukraine, the country decided together with Sweden last May to apply for admission to the western defense alliance.
Recording possible as early as next week
After Turkey’s final approval, Finland could become the 31st member of NATO as early as next week. Outstanding formalities should be completed in the next few days, several diplomats told the German Press Agency in Brussels on Thursday. Admission could then already be sealed at the NATO foreign ministers’ meeting next Tuesday and Wednesday.
According to information from NATO circles, Turkey has yet to officially report the ratification of the accession protocol to the US State Department. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg can then officially invite Finland to join. If Finland then accepts and deposits the relevant documents, it will officially become a member.
Finland actually wanted to join NATO together with Sweden. So far, this has failed due to Ankara and Budapest. Turkey accuses Sweden of not acting consistently enough against “terrorist organizations” and criticizes the fact that extradition requests are not answered. Sweden recently presented a draft for tougher terrorism laws – but so far that hasn’t changed anything about the Turkish blockade.
Sweden hopeful
The next NATO summit will take place in Lithuania in July. Despite Turkey’s existing objections, the Swedish government was confident that it would then be able to become a member of the alliance in Vilnius. Sweden has high hopes that this will happen, Swedish Foreign Minister Tobias Billstrom was quoted as saying by the TT news agency on Thursday.
With regard to Hungary’s actions, he said: “We see no reason why we should not be ratified.” In this respect, it is about something completely different than the Swedish NATO application, namely about the views of the EU on Hungary.
