The accession protocols of Finland and Sweden will be signed on Tuesday at NATO headquarters. However, there are still obstacles in the way of membership.
10:49•Updated 11:35
Yesterday, Monday reported (you will switch to another service), that Finland’s and Sweden’s accession negotiations with NATO have been completed. According to NATO, both have confirmed their will and ability to fulfill the political, legal and military obligations of NATO membership.
Thus, NATO membership can take a concrete step forward on Tuesday.
What’s happening today?
The accession protocols of Finland and Sweden will be signed today at the headquarters of the military alliance NATO in Brussels.
At the signing ceremony, 30 NATO countries are represented by their NATO ambassadors. Foreign minister Pekka Haavisto (green) and his Swedish colleague Ann Linde are present at the event.
After the signatures, Finland and Sweden will become observer members of the military alliance.
What does observer membership mean?
Until now, Finland and Sweden have been NATO partner countries, which has enabled cooperation in many international military exercises and operations.
As observer members, the countries can now participate in NATO meetings and can speak in them, but cannot participate in the votes. In addition, Finland and Sweden receive more detailed information from NATO that has not been shared with the partners alone.
Observer members are not affected by NATO’s most important dimension, i.e. Article Five, which obliges member countries to help a country under attack.
What happens next?
A new member of the club requires the approval of all current members. Before Finland and Sweden become actual members of the military alliance, their membership still needs to be ratified, i.e. put into effect in all NATO countries.
In practice, this means that the parliament of each NATO country processes and approves the accession protocols of Finland and Sweden according to their own practices.
Finland and Sweden will only become full members of NATO when the last of the 30 NATO countries has ratified the membership. This is estimated to take several months or even a year.
Are there still obstacles in the way of NATO membership?
Finland’s and Sweden’s biggest obstacle to NATO membership is still Turkey.
Although a preliminary agreement was reached with Turkey last week, i.e. a memorandum of understanding, thanks to which the membership can now move forward, Turkey is trying to block the ratification and impose new conditions on it.
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan immediately said that Turkey cannot ratify the NATO memberships of Finland and Sweden unless the countries fulfill the agreed promises. It has already become clear that the countries have different interpretations of how the content of the memorandum of understanding is to be implemented in practice.
In countries other than Turkey, the ratification process can also slow down, for example due to national elections and domestic political issues.
Instead, for example, NATO members Denmark, Norway and Estonia have said that they will try to ratify the membership of Finland and Sweden as quickly as possible.