JONATHAN NACKSTRAND / AFP
The flags of Sweden and NATO. All that remains in Stockholm is to convince Hungary to join the Atlantic Alliance.
INTERNATIONAL – Sweden has never been so close to joining NATO. Turkey's parliament overwhelmingly approved Stockholm's entry into the Atlantic Alliance on Tuesday, January 23, ending 20 months of negotiations that tested the patience of Western allies.
Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson welcomed “another step” towards his country’s NATO membership. Sweden's membership “makes NATO stronger and strengthens our security,” he added.
“The upcoming accession of Sweden, like that of Finland, will further strengthen the Atlantic Alliance,” argued Federal Government spokesman Steffen Hebestreit. It was “a direct response to the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine,” he recalled.
To meet Ankara's demands, Sweden reformed its constitution and passed a new anti-terrorism law. Turkey accused Sweden of leniency towards Kurdish militants who had sought refuge on its soil, some of whom Ankara considered terrorists.
Viktor Orban remains cautious
Hungary now remains the only holdout. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban invited his Swedish counterpart to Budapest to try to remove the final obstacles. For months, Orban has been demanding “respect” from Stockholm, whose policy of “denigration” and his regular statements about his country’s authoritarian drift he denounces.
Therefore, in the absence of a signal from them and under pressure from his NATO partners, the nationalist leader took the lead. “Today I sent a letter to Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson inviting him to Hungary to discuss Sweden's entry into the Atlantic Alliance,” he wrote on X.
In his letter, consulted by AFP, he emphasizes the need to “build solid mutual trust” through “intensified political dialogue”. The answer came a few hours later: “I see no reason to negotiate today,” the Swedish foreign minister responded to the press.
Finland joined NATO in April 2023
“At the Madrid summit last year, Hungary (..) granted Sweden guest status” with a view to joining NATO without reservations, emphasized Tobias Billström. On the other hand, he said he was ready for “discussions” and pointed to “the many similarities” and “military cooperation” between the two countries, but without responding to Hungary’s invitation.
Hungary has basically promised its support, but has been hesitating for months. Some experts saw this as a blackmail strategy by Viktor Orban to obtain concessions from the EU, others as a sign of his closeness to Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish head of state Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Sweden announced its entry into NATO in May 2022 in the wake of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, at the same time as Finland, which became the organization's 31st member in April.
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