Sweden and Finland officially became members of NATO. How does this change the situation in Europe?
The protocols on the accession of Finland and Sweden to NATO were signed on July 5, after negotiations that took place on July 4 at the Alliance headquarters.
This is stated in a press release published on the NATO website.
“Today we officially sign the accession protocols. This marks the beginning of the ratification process. Today is a good day for Finland, Sweden and NATO,” said Jens Stoltenberg.
On July 4, negotiations on joining the Alliance took place at NATO headquarters between NATO officials and representatives of Finland and Sweden. Ahead of the two newly minted members of the Alliance is the procedure for ratification of the signed protocol by all member countries. However, in view of the removal of the only potential obstacle in the form of Turkish objections, such ratification will be of a formal nature.
Sweden and Finland officially applied to join NATO on May 18. And on June 29, the leaders of NATO member countries officially invited Finland and Sweden to join the Alliance. This decision was caused by the start of the Russian military offensive in Ukraine on February 24, which kicked off a sharp deterioration in Moscow’s relations with the collective West and was used as a formal reason for violating all previously given data to Moscow promises.
Turkey, a longtime member of the alliance, has objected to their membership applications, criticizing the countries for supporting “terrorist groups,” referring to the Marxist Kurdistan Workers' Party and its militant groups fighting Ankara.
Ankara has put forward 10 conditions for countries, the fulfillment of which will open the door to the Alliance. As compensation for agreeing to the Atlantic plans of Stockholm and Helsinki, Turkey demanded the extradition of PKK activists located in these countries. After consent was received, the process of Sweden and Finland joining the Alliance was unblocked.
Nevertheless, experts predict serious problems for the governments of these countries, since such a decision will cause a negative reaction from the political Kurdish diaspora, which has long had great weight in the public life of the two countries.
For Russia, the entry into NATO of previously neutral Sweden and Finland means a sharp deterioration in its own position in the Baltic, which becomes NATO's internal sea, and the operational space for the Baltic Fleet narrows to the coast of the Kaliningrad exclave and a narrow strip of the Gulf of Finland in the St. Petersburg region. Thus, the next round of NATO expansion to the east actually throws Russia back to pre-Petrine times.
In addition, the decision to join previously neutral Finland in NATO puts an end to more than seventy years of peaceful coexistence of this country, first with the USSR and then with the Russian Federation, and resets the political results of the Soviet-Finnish war of 1939-1940, precisely as a result of which Helsinki pledged not to join into military blocs unfriendly to the USSR. Since that time, official Helsinki considers itself free from all obligations under the peace treaty with the USSR.
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