Less than three months after the start of Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, the Helsinki announcement marks a dramatic turnaround in Finland’s more than 75-year policy of non-alignment.
“It is a historic day. A new era is beginning,” Finnish President Sauli Niinistö told a joint news conference with Prime Minister Sanna Marin.
Finland’s parliament is due to examine the accession bill on Monday, but it is estimated that a large majority supports the initiative.
A joint candidacy with Finland is “the best thing for Sweden and its security”, affirmed the Swedish Prime Minister, Magdalena Andersson, after the meeting in Stockholm during which her party gave its approval to the request for admission.
On Monday, the Swedish leader will go to parliament to “secure broad parliamentary support for a NATO bid.”
Later, the Swedish government will make its decision, which would mean a change to more than 200 years of policies that have left the Scandinavian country outside military alliances, he acknowledged.
The movement caused divisions within the Social Democratic Party, where some voices denounce a hasty decision.
But if Sweden’s bid were approved, the Social Democrats would work to express their “unilateral reservations against the deployment of nuclear weapons and permanent bases on Swedish territory,” the formation said in a statement.
fast adhesion
Despite some objections expressed by Turkey, NATO members “are on the right track” in discussions to give the green light to the entry of Sweden and Finland, Croatian Foreign Minister Gordan Grlic-Radman said.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said he was confident in resolving Turkey’s concerns and insisted that the country is not opposed to membership applications.
Ankara accuses the two Nordic countries of laxity towards the members of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), at war with Turkey and which is on the list of terrorist organizations of the European Union.
The Turkish Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mevlut Cavusoglu, however, said he was willing to discuss with the two countries and with the other members of the alliance.
Stoltenberg affirmed today that Ukraine “can win the war” and added that he was “confident” that the process of accession of Finland and Sweden to the alliance would be expeditious.the same day that these two countries gave their approval to join it.
“Ukraine can win” the war against Russia, Stoltenberg told the foreign ministers of the 30 countries that make up the military alliance led by the United States, gathered in an extraordinary way in Berlin.
In a videoconference message while recovering from the coronavirus, Stoltenberg assured that “Russia is not achieving its strategic objectives” in Ukraine and that its offensive in the eastern Ukrainian region known as Donbass “stalled.”
The meeting in the German capital was intended to discuss the progress of the Russian invasion of Ukraine that began last February and, above all, the very possible accession to NATO of Finland and Sweden.
“I am confident that we will be able to find common ground, a consensus on how to move forward on accession issues,” Stoltenberg told reporters at a NATO meeting in Berlin.
“I am sure we will reach consensus,” US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said, referring to Turkey. In the event of a formal request, the United States would “strongly” support the accession of these two countries.
Turn in international politics
Having broken their political neutrality in the 1990s at the end of the Cold War by becoming members of the European Union, Sweden and Finland are moving closer to the Western bloc following a shift in public opinion following the war in Ukraine.
Finland, with 1,300 km of border with Russia, was the first to take the initiative and Sweden is following suit, fearful of finding itself the only country on the shores of the Baltic Sea (with the exception of Russia) outside the alliance led by the United States.
On Saturday, the Finnish head of state called his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, to inform him of the decision.
Putin responded that joining NATO “would be a mistake, as there is no threat to the security” of Finland, the Kremlin said.
Former Finnish Prime Minister Alexander Stubb told the BBC on Sunday that Putin was “the reason we joined” NATO. “We could easily call it Vladimir Putin’s enlargement of NATO,” he said.
According to the latest polls, more than 75% of Finns want to join the military alliance, triple the number before the war in Ukraine.
In Sweden, support also rose but to around 50% against 20% of people against.
The NATO accession process takes several months and requires the unanimous support of the 30 members of the transatlantic alliance.
Source: Ambito
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