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full screen Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson (M) shake hands in front of NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg. Archive image. Photo: Henrik Montgomery/TT
On Tuesday, Sweden can take another step towards membership in NATO when Sweden’s application is expected to be taken up in the Turkish parliament.
– I think the conditions are good for it to go through, says Turkey expert Paul Levin.
On Monday, several media reported that the Turkish parliament will vote on Sweden’s membership in the NATO defense alliance this week. According to information to TT, the vote, if it can be made in time, can already take place today, Tuesday.
Paul Levin, head of the Institute for Turkish Studies at Stockholm University, assesses that the chances of the parliament voting through Sweden’s application are good.
– If you look at the outcome in the foreign affairs committee, the yes side won with a reassuring majority – it was not only (President Recep Tayyip) Erdogan’s party AKP that said yes, but also the alliance party MHP and in addition they got the largest opposition party CHP. It would require quite substantial dropouts for the application not to go through, he says.
F16 deal with USA
The vote is prompted by a debate in parliament, and depending on how long the debate is, the announcement can take until late in the evening. When the parliament voted on Finland’s application in April last year, the vote was not completed until shortly before 11 p.m., Swedish time.
If the parliament says yes, President Erdogan must then sign and thus formally approve the law ratifying Sweden’s membership. In the case of Finland, it only took a few days from the time Erdogan signed the law until the country was a member of NATO. Levin believes in a quick process for Sweden as well, but at the same time emphasizes that Turkey could delay the process even at this stage.
– It is still about this F16 deal with the US, it is required that Erdogan trusts that the US Congress will let the deal go through, he says.
Hungary must approve
Turkey and Hungary are the only ones of the 31 NATO members that have not yet approved Sweden’s application.
Hungary has previously said it would not be the last to approve the application, but the country’s parliament is currently on recess and will not resume work until February. However, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán can, if he wishes, summon the parliament during its recess.
So far, the parliament has not been called to an extra session to vote on Sweden’s membership, but it could happen later this week, Hungarian MP Ágnes Vadai told TT on Monday evening.
FACT Sweden’s path to NATO
Sweden applied for membership in NATO, in parallel with Finland, on 18 May 2022.
On July 5 of the same year, Sweden and Finland were formally given the status of prospective members, “invitees” in English.
For Finland, the process ended in April this year when membership became completely clear after Hungary and Turkey became the last NATO countries to ratify the country’s application.
In connection with the NATO summit in Vilnius at the beginning of July, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan promised to “as soon as possible” send the Swedish application to the parliament for ratification.
On October 23, the Turkish presidential office announced that Erdogan had signed and forwarded Sweden’s NATO application to the parliament.
On November 16, the issue was raised in the parliament’s foreign affairs committee, but the vote was postponed.
On December 26, the foreign affairs committee approved Sweden’s application and forwarded the matter to the parliament’s main chamber.
Neither Turkey nor Hungary has ratified Sweden’s application. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has previously said that the country will not be the last to approve Sweden.
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