After more than 20 months of vetoes, of bad words, of reproaches, of refusals, of trips, of negotiations, of rapprochements and distancing, Türkiye this Tuesday ratified the entry of Sweden to the NATOone of the last steps for the Scandinavian country to finally enter as a partner in the Atlantic Alliance.
With the entry of StockholmNATO will already have 32 Member States: 29 Europeans and USA and Canada. The last one to join was Finlandwho joined the club in April of last year.
Sweden and Finland, in fact, submitted their application to join NATO at the same time, a few months after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which began in February 2022. But from the first moment two discordant voices emerged in the alliance: Türkiye and Hungarywho did not accept that Stockholm and Helsinki began the accession process until the summer of that year, at the Madrid Summit, when the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, forced the signing of a memorandum in which both Nordic countries committed to toughening their anti-terrorist laws to satisfy Türkiye’s demands. Ankara accused the two states of serving as a refuge for members of the PKK Turkish Kurdish guerrilla.
Sweden and Finland complied, but Türkiye continued with its veto. In April 2023, Ankara finally lifted its veto against Helsinki, but maintained it for Stockholm, with whom the tension generated by the burning of Korans in the Swedish capital was constant.
Now, 20 months of veto later, Turkey has ratified the entry of the thirty-second NATO State. In exchange, the Anatolian country hopes that the US will agree to sell it F-16 fighter jets.
A veto persists
But Sweden’s entry into NATO is not yet settled. For a new country to join the transatlantic alliance, all parliaments of all member states They must unanimously ratify the entry of the new country. And to this day, the House of Viktor Orbán’s Hungary has still not voted.
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In the previous months, Orbán had assured that Hungary would not be the one to delay Sweden’s entry, despite still maintaining its veto. This Tuesday, however, Orbán has changed its position. “Today I sent a letter of invitation to the Swedish Prime Minister, Ulf Kristerssonto visit Hungary and negotiate Sweden’s entry into NATO,” he said this Tuesday in ‘X’ the Hungarian Prime Minister.
“The purpose of the invitation is to create trust. The political and security cooperation needs this unconditional trust,” the Hungarian Foreign Minister clarified, after Orbán’s message, Péter Szijjártó. Hungary, in this way, according to experts, is trying to follow the path set by Turkey: to exchange the lifting of the parliamentary veto for concessions and sales of arms by NATO allies.