Sweden and Finland will present their application for membership in NATO tomorrow in Brussels, after the Finnish Parliament today approved joining the Alliance and the Swedish Government announced yesterday its decision to request entry into that organization.
The announcement was made at a joint press conference in Stockholm between the Swedish Prime Minister, Magdalena Andersson, and the Finnish President, Sauli Niinistö, on an official visit.
“Throughout tomorrow we will submit the request to NATO. It is a strong message and a clear sign that we are together in the future,” said Andersson.
Both agreed to explain the shift in their historical positions, in favor of non-alignment, through the change in security caused by the Russian military intervention in Ukraine, which creates a threat, and recalled the ties that unite both countries.
“Joining NATO strengthens the security of Sweden but also that of the Baltic, and doing it at the same time as Finland means that we will contribute to the security of northern Europe,” Andersson said.
Niinistö, for his part, spoke of a “historic step” and also pointed to the warnings made in November by Russian President Vladimir Putin against a possible expansion of NATO as a decisive fact.
Andersson and Niinistö will travel to Washington on Thursday to meet with the president of the United States, Joe Biden, with whom they will discuss their candidacy for the Alliance.
Of the two Nordic countries, Finland was the one that took the initiative in the accession process and the one that has moved forward with more determination, which has been crucial for Sweden, where the initial opposition was stronger, finally leaning towards also joining NATO.
However, in Finland the process has required a more complex procedure, since it had to be approved by the president, the Government and the Eduskunta (Parliament), while in Sweden it is decided by the Executive.
The Eduskunta overwhelmingly ratified on Tuesday the request to join NATO formally approved on Sunday by Niinistö and the coalition government led by the Prime Minister, the Social Democrat Sanna Marin.
With this historic decision, backed by 188 votes in favor and 8 against, Finland ends almost eight decades of non-alignment, which began after the two consecutive wars it waged against the Soviet Union between 1939 and 1944.
Although it was clear that there was a huge consensus in favor of NATO between the parties, the Eduskunta debated the issue on Monday for fourteen uninterrupted hours, in a plenary session in which almost all of the 200 deputies asked for a turn to speak.
In the final vote, all the political forces overwhelmingly backed the accession, including the Social Democratic Party (SDP) and the Left Alliance, traditionally more critical of NATO, although the vote was divided in this one.
After receiving the approval of the Eduskunta, the Finnish Foreign Minister, Pekka Haavisto, signed the formal application for the entry of this Nordic country into the Alliance, hours after his counterpart Ann Linde did so in Stockholm.
The shift in Sweden was more pronounced, since at the beginning of March, two weeks after the beginning of the Russian military intervention, Andersson still ruled out joining because he considered that it would not improve security and the opponents of the Alliance were the majority in the Riksdag ( Parliament).
Andersson, however, opened himself to joining weeks later, at the same time that his party, which in November had rejected joining NATO at its congress, began an internal discussion and the far-right Sweden Democrats, the third party in parliament, also joined support entry if Finland did so.
The Social Democratic Party decided on Sunday at an extraordinary meeting of its leadership to support accession, which the next day became a government decision after a debate in which it received the support of the main parliamentary forces and closed two centuries of non Swedish lineup.
Russia has reacted with moderation to the decision of both countries: Putin assured yesterday that the enlargement of NATO is not a problem for his country, although it will be if it includes the deployment of weapons on its territory.
Both Sweden and Finland have ruled out a direct military threat from Moscow, although they fear possible cyber or hybrid attacks, and have received security guarantees from several countries in the time until entry is formalized.
Once it receives the requests, NATO will invite both countries to negotiate the terms of accession in talks that are expected to be short, given that they meet the criteria established by the allies.
After the approval of the Alliance, it will be up to its 30 member countries to ratify the entry, a process that seemed like a simple procedure until days ago but that could be complicated by the sudden opposition of Turkey, which accuses Finland and Sweden of harboring “terrorists “Kurds.
Both leaders, however, were optimistic about the possibility of resolving the issue through dialogue.
“The statements that Turkey has made during the last few days have changed rapidly and have become harsher, but I am sure that with the help of constructive talks we will solve the situation,” Niinistö told the Riksdag today.
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