NATO Countries Signed Protocols on the Admission of Finland and Sweden to the Alliance

Finland and Sweden now have the right to participate in all meetings of the alliance, but cannot vote yet. The decision to admit the two NATO countries must be approved by all 30 alliance governments. The 30 NATO ambassadors on Tuesday, July 5, signed protocols for Finland and Sweden to join the alliance. As a result, the two countries can now participate in all meetings of the North Atlantic Alliance, but they do not yet have voting rights. “Both countries have formally confirmed their willingness and ability to fulfill the political, legal and military obligations of NATO membership,” the protocol of accession to the alliance said. The decision to admit Finland and Sweden to NATO must be approved by all 30 governments of the alliance. The German Bundestag may vote on the accession of Finland and Sweden to NATO as soon as this week. In May Sweden and Finland, amid Russia’s armed invasion of Ukraine, abandoned their traditional neutrality and applied to join NATO. The alliance launched the process of admitting the two countries to NATO in late June after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan withdrew his objections to Sweden and Finland joining the alliance. Erdogan said he withdrew his objections after Sweden and Finland agreed to extradite alleged Kurdish extremists and suspects involved in the 2016 coup attempt to Turkiye. Turkiye’s president warned that if the two countries failed to keep their promises, his parliament would not ratify their NATO accession documents. DW