Finland’s parliament is moving ahead with the domestic process to ratify the Nordic country’s accession to NATO, even as approval from Turkey and Hungary has yet to be received.
(Bloomberg) — Finland’s parliament is moving ahead with the domestic process to ratify the Nordic country’s accession to NATO, even as approval from Turkey and Hungary has yet to be received.
Nine months after putting in its application to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the nation of 5.5 million defending a 1,300-kilometer (800-mile) border against Russia wants to send a signal to the holdouts that it’s now time to complete the bloc’s enlargement.
Lawmakers in Helsinki are moving ahead now to ensure the process is completed before they go on a break ahead of the April 2 general election. The bill will be sent to the plenary next week after the parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee finished its work on it, and a vote by the legislature is tentatively set for Feb. 28, Jussi Halla-aho, committee chairman, said at a news conference in Helsinki on Friday.
“Gradually a consensus has emerged that it’s better that we take care of this before the parliament goes on electoral break,” Halla-aho said. “When we have taken care of our part in parliament, it’s no longer in our hands. And if Finland’s membership is ratified” by other countries “after we have finished in parliament, then Finland will become member of NATO at some point in time.”
After the parliament’s plenary votes on approving the bill, President Sauli Niinisto has three months to sign the document. Membership in the alliance begins when all ratifications are completed and the document is deposited in Washington.
Finland and Sweden sought to join the defense alliance together in May, and were invited by all allies in June after initial qualms by Turkey were assuaged with a memorandum of understanding in which the Nordic nations laid out improvements they were making to countering terrorism.
Since then, 28 of 30 members have ratified the enlargement in what is so far the fastest such process on record. While Hungary has given no reason for its delay, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has objected to Sweden over concerns that Stockholm isn’t doing enough to crack down on Kurdish groups Ankara considers terrorists.
Last month he ruled out supporting Sweden’s bid after a puppet in his likeness was suspended upside down in the center of Stockholm and a copy of the Koran burned in a demonstration, though it’s unclear whether he will change his mind and when.
Following Erdogan’s move, Finland opened the door to potentially decoupling its application from that of Sweden, though Helsinki has insisted a joint entry remains the preference. While the two countries had applied together in May, their bids are technically separate as each filed its own letter seeking admission and NATO’s rules recognize no joint memberships.
Turkey is nearing a decision to approve Finland’s accession to NATO by next month at the latest, people familiar with the matter said earlier this month, before a devastating earthquake hit Turkey and northern Syria, putting that timeline to question.
Sweden’s government intends to present its bill on membership of NATO to the parliament in March.
(Updates with comments from committee leader from third paragraph.)
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