Hungary and Turkey are the last two roadblocks to NATO membership for Finland and Sweden
In the corridors of power in Stockholm and Helsinki, the champagne is on ice.
After only three months, 28 out of 30 NATO states have ratified the treaty amendments in their national parliaments that would approve membership for Finland and Sweden; while 24 nations have already deposited the new paperwork in Washington.
But there are two reasons why Nordic champagne corks aren’t really popping yet: Hungary and Turkey.
In September, the Finnish foreign minister said his Hungarian counterpart had promised to proceed with ratification and assured that Finns had no objections to Finland or Sweden’s accession.
A few weeks earlier at the end of August, Hungary’s Minister for Regional Development (and former EU Commissioner) Tibor Navracsics visited Helsinki and told Finnish parliament members that his country would ratify their application for NATO membership without delay.
“Hungary supports Finland’s NATO membership, but the ratification process in the Hungarian parliament is still ongoing.” Finnish government press release noted at the time.
This week, however, Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz politicians blocked the introduction of a motion in parliament that would have accelerated a vote on the NATO accession process for both Finland and Sweden, in a move that drew sharp criticism from the opposition.
“This is an incomprehensible and unjustified decision,” said Bertalan Tóth, the Hungarian member of parliament who tried to present the motion.
“Finland and Sweden are committed partners of NATO, have been involved in the Alliance’s Partnership for Peace program since 1994 and have played and are playing an active role in past and present NATO-led peace support operations,” he added.
In theory, the discussion of the accession process is still on the agenda of the Hungarian parliament. However, no date has been set, which means that the problem is on the back burner for the time being.
What does this mean for Finland and Sweden?
Behind the scenes in Helsinki and Stockholm, there will be some frustration among ministers and officials who believe they have arrived so far, so fast with NATO membership, only to be blocked at the final hurdles.
So is there anything that both countries can do to put more pressure on Viktor Orbán and his government?
“Maybe there is not much Finland can do about this,” said Minna Ålanderresearcher at the International Institute of Finland in Helsinki.
“Possibly, Fidesz hopes to link Finland and Sweden’s NATO membership to the European Commission’s latest proposal to freeze funds for Hungary due to rule of law problems,” she told Euronews.
“But in this case, it looks like Orban is only joining the Turkish bandwagon regarding Finnish and Swedish NATO membership. As long as Erdogan continues to announce that he will continue to block their accession, as he did for a couple of days ago, Hungary is unlikely to move either, Ålander said.
So what’s the deal with Turkey?
Turkey’s argument for stopping NATO membership for Finland and Sweden is more complex than Hungary’s.
The Turks had initially signaled their support for NATO’s bid: in a telephone conversation between President Erdogan and President Niinistö in early April, the Finns were assured that there would be no problems.
But just a month later and Turkey had backtracked, coming up with a laundry list of reasons why the two Nordic nations could not join NATO, including alleged support for groups Ankara considers terrorist organizations.
Fast forward another month to the NATO summit in Madrid at the end of June, and after intense closed-door diplomacy, Turkey reach agreement to support the memberships – including setting up tripartite talks to iron out any issues.
Those discussions started in Finland in August and was expected to continue in the fall, but by the beginning of the month, Erdogan had put sticks in the wheel to approve the bids – again.
At the opening of parliament in Ankara on October 1, he told lawmakers that if Finland and Sweden did not live up to “promises” they made to Turkey on security and terrorism, he would block their bid for membership.
“We will maintain our principled and resolute stance on this matter until the promises made to our country are kept,” Erdogan said.
Another fly in the ointment is Turkish anger over a satirical news broadcast on SVT, which featured Erdogan. The Swedish ambassador in Ankara has been called to an undressing and the timing is far from ideal.
“Formally, it is up to the Turkish parliament to decide on Sweden’s NATO application, but in the end it is Erdogan who decides – and he is an emotional person who can absolutely choose to punish an opponent if he feels offended.” Paul Levinsays the head of the Institute for Turkish Studies at Stockholm University to News Agency TT.
Ankara’s military shopping list comes into play
Turkey is still hoping for a green light buy American F-16 fighter jets – and they may be considering using Finland and Sweden’s NATO decision as a way to pressure the Americans to approve a deal (a senior Turkish military commander recently said that if there was no F-16 deal, Turkey could buy new fighter jets from Russia instead ).
“Turkey’s strategic interests have increasingly diverged from the rest of the country [NATO] alliance,” said Toni Alarantaa Turkey specialist at the Finnish International Institute, in a recent information paper.
“It is hard to escape the conclusion that the country’s foreign policy elites are extremely doubtful whether it is ultimately in Turkey’s interest to support NATO expansion at a time when Turkey is determined to continue its balancing policy between the West and Russia,” Dr. Alaranta wrote.
He also said it could be argued that Turkey sees more Nordic NATO membership as a potentially disruptive element, “further straining the relationship between Western Russia”.
However, he concluded that Turkey will eventually approve the membership of Finland and Sweden.
It may simply be a matter of timing and leverage.