The expected decision had the support of six of the eight groups with parliamentary representation and only the Environment Party and the Socialist Left Party voted against it.
The entry into NATO of Sweden, together with that of Finland, is motivated by the Russian military intervention in Ukraine and was approved at the June 2022 Alliance summit in Madrid, after Turkey lifted its veto at the last minute. change of certain conditions, embodied in an agreement. Twenty-eight of the thirty member countries have subsequently ratified that agreement, with Turkey and Hungary failing to do so.
But while Ankara and Budapest have recently given the green light to Finland’s entry, in the absence of a vote in their respective chambers, they have not done the same with Sweden, especially Turkey, which maintains the veto on Stockholm. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan assured last Friday that negotiations with Sweden would continue and reproached him for not extraditing people that Ankara considers linked to terrorist organizations, especially from the Kurdish sphere.
Erdogan plays three bands with the desire of Sweden and Finland to join NATO
Talks between the three countries had been interrupted more than a month earlier by Ankara after a pro-Kurdish group carried out a symbolic execution of Erdogan in Stockholm and the burning of the Koran by a far-right outside its embassy in the Swedish capital. The Swedish Foreign Minister, Tobias Billström, assured last Friday that his government will not take any additional measures to what was agreed in Madrid and that when new anti-terrorism legislation is expected to be approved on June 1, the “last piece of the puzzle” will have been fitted. “.
The Swedish government is confident that NATO membership will be formalized at the Alliance summit in July in Vilnius, although the Social Democratic opposition, which began the accession process in 2022 and voted in favor today, was skeptical and urged the Executive not to take anything for granted.
During a previous debate of more than six hours held this Wednesday, the two parties that voted against the motion criticized the fact that a referendum on the matter had not been held, a possibility that the previous Social Democratic government rejected months ago.
