Perspectives of Finnish and Swedish accession before the Vilnius summit
The Ninth NATO enlargement
Abstract
After Russia attacked Ukraine, the question of the neutrality of Finnish and Swedish securityand defense policy resurfaced. With the outbreak of the war, the previously fairly pro-neutralpublic opinion in both countries turned round and clearly sees the future security guaranteesin NATO membership. Although there were difficulties with the approval of the membershipapplications - Turkey opposed the accession for a long time, which was resolved by thesigning of a tripartite agreement in June 28, 2022. The Allies then signed the AccessionProtocol on 5 July, which took less than two months to go from letter of intent to acceptance inthe shortest time in the history of NATO enlargement. Although all 30 NATO allies havesigned the protocol, according to Article 10 of the North Atlantic Treaty, ratification at themember state level is also required. The ratification process took place quickly, 28 memberstates approved the membership application in three months, but the process got stuck at theend of September: in two countries, Hungary and Turkey, national approval is still awaited.On March 1, 2023, the Hungarian Parliament began a ratification debate of the instrumentof accession of two Scandinavian countries, then at the meeting on March 27 the parlamentariensvoted for Finland’s accesion. In the case of Turkey, on the other hand, severaluncertainty factors are outlined five months before the next NATO summit in Vilnius. Withthe accession of Finland and Sweden, NATO would be expanded with two allies located ingeopolitically and strategically key areas. The both country have not only been reliableNATO partners for thirty years, but are sharing the same values in maintaining transatlanticsecurity, and are also fully interoperable with the alliance militarily. In this article- connected to the NATO discourse in the journal Hungarian Military Science - we examinethe possibility how the two aspirant countries will become full members of NATO.
