Bonjour ! The process of joining Sweden and Finland to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)motivated by the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, is still in the process of being ratified in the organisation’s thirty member countries, since the procedure was launched on 5 July.
The French Parliament has ratified the NATO accession protocols of the two countries August 2. According to a list of the organization, six member countries have not yet officially ratified this membership: Hungary, Portugal, Spain, Slovakia and Turkey.
As you have noted, Ankara is holding back the process of Finland and Sweden joining NATO, accusing them of pro-Kurdish positions. However, for their membership to be effective, the ratification of all the member countries of the organization is necessary.
Turkey notably accuses the two Nordic countries of having hosted on their soil people linked to the Kurdish Workers’ Party (PKK), the Kurdish YPG group in Syria, as well as people involved in the failed coup in Turkey in 2016.
The three countries therefore entered into tripartite talks this summer to change the situation. They signed a trilateral memorandum at the June NATO summit in Madrid, in which Turkey gave its preliminary agreement to the entry of Stockholm and Helsinki, in exchange for cooperation in the fight against terrorism. They met again in August and a new meeting is considered ” in autumn “.
With regard to the political situation which has just changed in Sweden due to the victory of the right-wing and far-right bloc in the legislative elections, on Sunday, it should have no impact on the issue of NATO membership.
In fact, with the invasion of Ukraine by Russia, the far right and the social democrats, although historically opposed to the idea of joining NATO, changed their position, allowing the filing of a candidacy in mid-May. The subject is therefore now the subject of a broad consensus among the main Swedish parties: only the Left Party (ex-Communist) and the Greens remain opposed to it.