NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg announced in a special video statement that he welcomes the ratification of Finland’s application to join NATO in the Turkish parliament and that Finland will become a member of the Alliance “in the coming days”.
“I welcome the voting of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey for the ratification of Finland’s membership in NATO. All 30 NATO countries have already ratified the accession protocol,” – said Stoltenberg.
The NATO Secretary General announced that he had “just spoken with President Sauli Niinistö to congratulate him on this historic event,” and that “Finland will officially join our Alliance in the coming days.”
He reminded that in 2022, NATO allies made a historic decision to invite Finland and Sweden to join the North Atlantic Alliance, and that Finland’s application was “the fastest in NATO’s modern history” to be ratified.
Stoltenberg emphasized that “the swift completion of the ratification process of Sweden’s application will also be in our common interest” and that he “looks forward to the opportunity to welcome Sweden as a full member of the NATO family”.
At the NATO summit in Madrid on June 28, 2022, the Alliance invited Sweden and Finland to become its members. According to the statute, the invitations must be ratified by the parliaments of all 30 member countries of the Alliance.
On February 7, 2023, the head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Finland, Pekka Haavisto, announced that his country considers it crucially important to join NATO together with Sweden. Sweden’s application has not yet been ratified, only Turkey and Hungary.
On March 29, the Hungarian government explained that it is not currently considering Sweden’s application because it believes that Sweden “does not sufficiently respect” Hungary.