Germany says ready for rapid ratification of Finland, Sweden NATO membership
Germany has made all preparations for a rapid ratification process should Finland and Sweden decide to apply for NATO membership, Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said on Sunday, while emphasizing the need for both countries’ security guarantees.
For all the latest headlines, follow our Google News channel online or via the app.
“Germany has prepared everything to make a rapid ratification process,” she told reporters on a second day of talks with her NATO counterparts in Berlin, adding that ministers had agreed at a dinner on Saturday that there would be no gray area between the time they apply and when they join.
“If they decide to join, they can join quickly … We must ensure that we give them security guarantees, there must not be a transition period, a gray area, where their status is unclear,” she said.
She was referring to the ratification period, which could take as long as a year, during which the Nordic countries will not yet be protected by NATO Article 5, which guarantees that an attack on an ally is an attack on everyone.
Read more:
Blinken goes to Europe for NATO, trade meetings
G7 to continue economic pressure on Russia, tackle “wheat war”
Putin sees all end of Finnish military neutrality as a “mistake”: the Kremlin