Sweden’s accession to NATO: new updates

Soon, namely in the next few weeks, the Turkish parliament could officially ratify the protocol on Sweden's NATO membership

          The Swedish foreign minister, Tobias Billström, announced the expected moment for the country's entry into the North Atlantic Alliance.

          ,,I had a bilateral meeting with my Turkish counterpart Hakan Fidan, in which he told me that he expects the ratification to take place quite soon’’, said the minister. He noted that Ankara has made no new requests regarding the approval of Stockholm's entry into NATO.

          For his part, Jens Stoltenberg, the secretary general of the North Atlantic Alliance, hoped that Turkey and Hungary would ratify Sweden’s accession without further delay.

          ,,I expect more involvement from Ankara and Budapest. The other NATO members agree that Sweden should join us’’, he said.

          In addition, he mentioned that he discussed about Stockholm’s membership in the Alliance with Hungarian President KatalinNovák during his visit to Brussels on November 28-29 this year and that they came to the conclusion together that Sweden’s entry would strengthen NATO’s military and strategic potential.

          Novák called Finland’s accession to the Alliance a positive step and expressed hope for Sweden’s entry from the very beginning, but recalled that the issue of ratification of the request is the competence of the Hungarian parliament, and neither she nor Prime Minister Viktor Orbán can influence deputies’ activity.

          Sweden’s entry into NATO remains a process full of uncertainties.