Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan wants to approve Finland’s planned NATO membership. The ratification process will start in parliament, Erdogan said in Ankara on Friday. Erdogan thus dropped his blockade of NATO expansion northwards, at least in part. Unlike Finland, Sweden will have to wait for approval from Ankara.
We still have to think about Sweden, Erdogan said after a meeting with Finnish President Sauli Niinistö. He said that Finland’s membership would not be complete without Sweden.
The Turkish parliament could thus ratify Finland’s accession protocol in mid-April – then it would stop functioning ahead of the Turkish parliamentary elections on May 14. So far, only Turkish and Hungarian approvals are missing for membership.
After the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Sweden and Finland decided last year to apply for NATO membership after a long period of military non-alignment. 28 of the alliance’s 30 current members have already ratified their membership, and in Hungary a parliamentary vote is expected soon.
Turkey, on the other hand, has been blocking dual membership for months. Their objections are mainly directed at Sweden, which they say is not active against “terrorist organizations”. Ankara is primarily concerned about the banned PKK Kurdish Workers Party.
Sweden will follow later
Since submitting the application in May 2022, Sweden and Finland have repeatedly emphasized that they want to be admitted to NATO at the same time and “hand in hand”. The Turkish blockade, which intensified after several Islamophobic protests in Stockholm earlier this year, complicated this parallel step. Therefore, it is rumored that Turkey would first agree to Finland’s membership in NATO and that Sweden might follow suit at a later date.
The fact that Erdogan let Finland go first and Sweden wait was something people in northern Europe had come to reckon with more and more recently. During a visit to Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) on Wednesday, Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson confirmed that his country is also prepared for this possibility – even if he still prefers joint accession with Finland. Scholz emphasized that Germany wanted to see the two Nordic countries into NATO quickly.