Meeting in Oslo, the NATO foreign ministers intensified the pressure on Türkiye and Hungary for the ratification of Sweden’s entry into the Alliancebut they have not yet taken a line on Ukraine’s possible membership.
The allies “gave their word” to Sweden that it would join and this promise must be honoured, underlined the German foreign minister Annalena Baerbock. I hope “the game ends soon” and Sweden enters before the NATO summit in Vilnius on July 11-12, added the Luxembourg colleague Jean Asselborn. Swedish minister Tobias Billstrom, who was present as a guest, stressed that his country has fulfilled all Turkish requests. “It is time for Turkey and Hungary to start ratifying Sweden’s membership,” she said, emphasizing the support received from many members of the Atlantic Alliance.
“I spoke at the beginning of the week” with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, re-elected last Sunday, and “I will also go to Ankara in the near future to continue talking about how we can guarantee Sweden’s accession as quickly as possible”, he assured the secretary general of NATO Jens Stoltenberg. But not everyone is optimistic. Czech Foreign Minister Jan Lipavský said he feared Sweden would fail to join before the Vilnius summit, becoming the 32nd member of the alliance after Finland joined in April.
On a possible future entry of Ukraine, however, there is no shared position. The allies “must give very concrete answers on how Ukraine can get closer to NATO and one day become a member of the Alliance”, said the Lithuanian foreign minister, Gabrielius Landsbergis. “We need a strong message that there will be no more gray areas” in the areas that Russia considers under its influence, echoed the Estonian colleague Margus Tsahkna.
“NATO’s open door policy remains in force, but at the same time it is clear that we cannot discuss the accession of new members who are in the midst of a war“, pointed out the German Baerbock. “In its 75 years of existence, NATO has never admitted a nation while it was at war”, added Asselborn.
Stoltenberg underlined that the Alliance is now focused on helping Ukraine to defend itself from Russia but that, once the conflict has ended, NATO will have to offer security guarantees to Ukraine so that “history does not repeat itself”.
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