What still needs to happen before Sweden can join Nato?
July 5th marks one year since Nato leaders invited Sweden and Finland to join the military alliance. But while Finland became a member months ago, Sweden is still waiting. What needs to happen now?
On paper, there are only two steps left before Sweden can officially join Nato: ratification of Sweden's Accession Protocol to Nato by Turkey and Hungary, followed by Sweden's government submitting a proposal to its parliament to accept the accession agreement.
In practice, this is easier said than done. Turkey and Hungary have already had a year to ratify Sweden's Accession Protocol, in which time they both ratified Finland's, so it's an issue of a deliberate delay rather than slow-moving bureaucracy.
Why hasn't Turkey ratified Sweden's application?
“It’s a tough question," Paul Levin, director of the Stockholm University Institute for Turkish Studies, told The Local.
In summer last year, Sweden, Finland and Turkey all agreed on a trilateral memorandum, listing a range of criteria which the two applicant countries had to fulfil before Turkey would accept their Nato applications.
This included Sweden and Finland pledging to support Turkey in the face of any threats to its national security and pledging to not support Kurdish militant groups the YPG/PYD or the Gülen movement, a group which Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has accused of trying to overthrow his government in a coup attempt.
“But Turkey has also demanded extraditions, there have not been many extraditions of terror suspects to Turkey, and the concrete steps that Sweden has taken including charges against a suspected PKK member financing the PKK, don’t seem to be satisfying them.”
The memorandum also included clauses where Sweden and Finland pledged to denounce all terrorist organisations launching attacks on Turkey.
"Turkey has said repeatedly that it is unsatisfied with the steps that Sweden has taken so far to combat terrorism. They’ve been quite consistent in saying that they want concrete action on the ground and not just empty words. Sweden has made legal changes, they have changed the constitution, enacted a new, tougher anti-terrorism law, and so on.”
In addition to this, the two countries pledged that they would process the deportations of people Turkey classed as terror suspects "speedily and accurately", as well as agreeing that there would be no weapon embargoes between the three countries.
Although Finland was included in the memorandum, Sweden was the focus of many of the criteria, as it has a much larger Kurdish population and has had greater issues with self-described members of the YPG/PYD or PKK, which is classified as a terror organisation by Nato, the US, the EU, Sweden and a range of other countries.
Has Sweden fulfilled the requirements in the memorandum?
Yes, if you ask Nato chief Jens Stoltenberg, who has repeatedly stated that he considers the requirements fulfilled and has put pressure on Turkey to ratify Sweden's application.
Sweden has approved legislation designed to prevent participation of terror organisations and deported a handful of PKK members requested by Turkey.
"But, it’s also open to interpretation," Levin told The Local.
"And Turkey is saying in so many words that PKK flags in the streets, even after the tougher anti-terrorism laws that supposedly make it impossible or illegal to rally in favour of terrorist groups or recruit members, that clearly that's evidence that those laws are toothless, and therefore that Sweden has not fully implemented the memorandum."
So... why hasn't Turkey approved Sweden's application yet?
Well, Turkey's holdout on approving Sweden's application doesn't really appear to be about whether the Nordic country has fulfilled the requirements set out in the memorandum any more.
Prior to Turkey's general election in May, many believed Erdoğan was holding off on approving Sweden's Nato application in order to appear stronger with voters at home, but the election has come and gone now.
Meanwhile, a spate of Quran-burning protests in Stockholm has thrown another spanner in the works and made it increasingly difficult for Turkey to approve Sweden's application.
Turkey is a member of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, the OIC, an intergovernmental organisation consisting of 57 countries, 48 of which are majority-Muslim.
The most recent Quran-burning outside a Stockholm mosque in late June coincided with the start of the Eid al-Adha holiday and the end of the annual Hajj pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia, which sparked a diplomatic backlash, leading a host of countries across the Muslim world to summon their Swedish ambassadors in protest.
- KEY POINTS: Why did Sweden's police allow another Quran burning?
- Muslim countries summon Swedish ambassadors over Quran burning
On July 2nd, at an extraordinary meeting at its Jeddah headquarters, the Saudi-based OIC called for collective measures to avoid future Quran burnings.
This, and Sweden's recent issues with Quran-burning protests, has made it less likely that Sweden will join Nato at the next summit in Vilnius on July 11th-12th.
"Right now, I think it's largely out of Sweden's hands," he told The Local.
"I think Sweden has done as much as it can and is willing to do, freedom of speech and freedom of assembly would be something that I think Ankara could happily receive as a gift but it would be political suicide for the Swedish government to do. It’s now a negotiation between Turkey and other Nato allies.”
He added that the trilateral memorandum negotiated last year is good for Sweden in this regard, as it allows the country to focus negotiations on what was agreed upon a year ago.
"Matters like the burning of the Quran, which is deeply insulting and offensive to many Muslims, it’s not something that was negotiated in this memorandum," Levin said.
"Neither were there promises of any specific number of extraditions, just that Swedish authorities would consider Turkish requests speedily and in a judicious manner. So in that sense I think Sweden is happy."
Turkey's foreign minister Hakan Fidan referred to the Quran-burning incident as an example of Sweden failing to live up to commitments made in the memorandum last year, adding that it was holding off on approving Sweden's application until it had determined whether the Nordic country's accession to Nato would be positive or negative for the alliance.
"Sweden's security system is not able to stop provocations. This is not bringing more strength but more problems to Nato," he told a press conference.
"In terms of strategy and security, when we are discussing Sweden's membership of Nato, it's a question of whether it will be a benefit or a burden."
Another possible reason for the delay is that Turkey could be planning to use ratification of Sweden's accession as a bargaining chip with the US, in order to be able to buy an American F16 fighter jet.
“Biden is not able to guarantee that Turkey would get the F16s, congress is not willing to give the F16s in advance, so it’s a bit of a game of chicken, like a hostage exchange - do you give the money first or do you get the hostage first, to be blunt about it," Levin told The Local.
"But given the measures that Sweden has taken, my sense is that right now, much hangs on Turkey-US negotiations."
He does not believe, however, that Turkey will be able to delay the process much longer.
"I find it unlikely that Erdoğan would hold out and maintain his veto on everything that he’s currently vetoing. So the Swedish accession as well as the very ambitious secret Nato plans and restructuring. If that were the case he would single-handedly turn Vilnius into a political disaster for Nato."
On July 5th, Sweden's Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson met with US President Joe Biden in Washington to discuss the Nato process, with a meeting between Sweden and Turkey's foreign ministers scheduled for the following day.
What about Hungary?
Unlike Turkey, Hungary has not made any specific requests or stipulations for Sweden to gain its approval. Hungary's parliament will meet for the last time on Friday, July 7th, before taking a summer break, and a vote on approving Sweden's Nato application is not scheduled before then.
"My party put in a request to vote on it, but the request was voted down," opposition politician Ágnes Vadai told TT newswire from Budapest.
Hungary has previously stated that it will not delay Sweden's application, and that it will not be the last country to approve it, which suggests that it will approve Sweden's application at the same time as Turkey.
"I also think it’s a case of solidarity between Orbán and Erdoğan, two leaders that often get criticism for being authoritarian from the EU," Levin said.
"So Orbán seems to be wanting to back Erdoğan up so he’s not alone in this. At the same time, he’s made it clear that he doesn’t want to be the last person to ratify."
However, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has described political relations between Sweden and Hungary as "awfully wrong", stating that relations between the two countries must improve before Hungary can ratify Sweden's application.
"I read Hungary as a sort of canary in the coal mine for what Turkey is likely to do," Levin said. "If Hungary moves to ratify then that’s a signal that Erdoğan has decided to ratify. And the opposite is true, too."
Could Russian influence on Turkey or Hungary have anything to do with it?
It's possible that Turkey's ties to Russia could have something to do with its delay in approving Sweden's application, although Levin believes that Russia's ties with Hungary are closer.
"It’s undoubtedly the case that Turkey has ties to Russia, whether in the form of energy imports, Russian tourism, export of agricultural goods, inflow of foreign capital via Russia, and now allegations that Turkey is serving as some kind of conduit for sanctions evasions to Russia," he said.
"My suspicion is that those ties are stronger in Hungary’s case, but is something that quite possibly also plays in to everyone’s calculations."
So, when will Sweden join Nato?
It's hard to say. If we assume that Hungary does not vote on Sweden's accession to Nato before the summer break – which looks like it will be the case – then Sweden won't be able to join Nato until this autumn, at the earliest.
That's only if Erdoğan changes his mind before then, paving the way for Turkey to approve Sweden's Nato application.
Although that sounds unlikely, anything is possible.
"That’s the problem studying Turkey, a lot of it is up to one man’s decision, and that’s practically impossible to say," Levin said.
"The question for me is whether the Swedish Nato accession will sort of tag along if there’s a compromise on other issues, if he lifts his veto on those, that’s an open question. Because the Quran burnings and the PKK demonstrations, they’ve made it difficult for him to say yes, I could well imagine that he holds out. It’s not possible to say."
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On paper, there are only two steps left before Sweden can officially join Nato: ratification of Sweden's Accession Protocol to Nato by Turkey and Hungary, followed by Sweden's government submitting a proposal to its parliament to accept the accession agreement.
In practice, this is easier said than done. Turkey and Hungary have already had a year to ratify Sweden's Accession Protocol, in which time they both ratified Finland's, so it's an issue of a deliberate delay rather than slow-moving bureaucracy.
Why hasn't Turkey ratified Sweden's application?
“It’s a tough question," Paul Levin, director of the Stockholm University Institute for Turkish Studies, told The Local.
In summer last year, Sweden, Finland and Turkey all agreed on a trilateral memorandum, listing a range of criteria which the two applicant countries had to fulfil before Turkey would accept their Nato applications.
This included Sweden and Finland pledging to support Turkey in the face of any threats to its national security and pledging to not support Kurdish militant groups the YPG/PYD or the Gülen movement, a group which Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has accused of trying to overthrow his government in a coup attempt.
“But Turkey has also demanded extraditions, there have not been many extraditions of terror suspects to Turkey, and the concrete steps that Sweden has taken including charges against a suspected PKK member financing the PKK, don’t seem to be satisfying them.”
The memorandum also included clauses where Sweden and Finland pledged to denounce all terrorist organisations launching attacks on Turkey.
"Turkey has said repeatedly that it is unsatisfied with the steps that Sweden has taken so far to combat terrorism. They’ve been quite consistent in saying that they want concrete action on the ground and not just empty words. Sweden has made legal changes, they have changed the constitution, enacted a new, tougher anti-terrorism law, and so on.”
In addition to this, the two countries pledged that they would process the deportations of people Turkey classed as terror suspects "speedily and accurately", as well as agreeing that there would be no weapon embargoes between the three countries.
Although Finland was included in the memorandum, Sweden was the focus of many of the criteria, as it has a much larger Kurdish population and has had greater issues with self-described members of the YPG/PYD or PKK, which is classified as a terror organisation by Nato, the US, the EU, Sweden and a range of other countries.
Has Sweden fulfilled the requirements in the memorandum?
Yes, if you ask Nato chief Jens Stoltenberg, who has repeatedly stated that he considers the requirements fulfilled and has put pressure on Turkey to ratify Sweden's application.
Sweden has approved legislation designed to prevent participation of terror organisations and deported a handful of PKK members requested by Turkey.
"But, it’s also open to interpretation," Levin told The Local.
"And Turkey is saying in so many words that PKK flags in the streets, even after the tougher anti-terrorism laws that supposedly make it impossible or illegal to rally in favour of terrorist groups or recruit members, that clearly that's evidence that those laws are toothless, and therefore that Sweden has not fully implemented the memorandum."
So... why hasn't Turkey approved Sweden's application yet?
Well, Turkey's holdout on approving Sweden's application doesn't really appear to be about whether the Nordic country has fulfilled the requirements set out in the memorandum any more.
Prior to Turkey's general election in May, many believed Erdoğan was holding off on approving Sweden's Nato application in order to appear stronger with voters at home, but the election has come and gone now.
Meanwhile, a spate of Quran-burning protests in Stockholm has thrown another spanner in the works and made it increasingly difficult for Turkey to approve Sweden's application.
Turkey is a member of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, the OIC, an intergovernmental organisation consisting of 57 countries, 48 of which are majority-Muslim.
The most recent Quran-burning outside a Stockholm mosque in late June coincided with the start of the Eid al-Adha holiday and the end of the annual Hajj pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia, which sparked a diplomatic backlash, leading a host of countries across the Muslim world to summon their Swedish ambassadors in protest.
- KEY POINTS: Why did Sweden's police allow another Quran burning?
- Muslim countries summon Swedish ambassadors over Quran burning
On July 2nd, at an extraordinary meeting at its Jeddah headquarters, the Saudi-based OIC called for collective measures to avoid future Quran burnings.
This, and Sweden's recent issues with Quran-burning protests, has made it less likely that Sweden will join Nato at the next summit in Vilnius on July 11th-12th.
"Right now, I think it's largely out of Sweden's hands," he told The Local.
"I think Sweden has done as much as it can and is willing to do, freedom of speech and freedom of assembly would be something that I think Ankara could happily receive as a gift but it would be political suicide for the Swedish government to do. It’s now a negotiation between Turkey and other Nato allies.”
He added that the trilateral memorandum negotiated last year is good for Sweden in this regard, as it allows the country to focus negotiations on what was agreed upon a year ago.
"Matters like the burning of the Quran, which is deeply insulting and offensive to many Muslims, it’s not something that was negotiated in this memorandum," Levin said.
"Neither were there promises of any specific number of extraditions, just that Swedish authorities would consider Turkish requests speedily and in a judicious manner. So in that sense I think Sweden is happy."
Turkey's foreign minister Hakan Fidan referred to the Quran-burning incident as an example of Sweden failing to live up to commitments made in the memorandum last year, adding that it was holding off on approving Sweden's application until it had determined whether the Nordic country's accession to Nato would be positive or negative for the alliance.
"Sweden's security system is not able to stop provocations. This is not bringing more strength but more problems to Nato," he told a press conference.
"In terms of strategy and security, when we are discussing Sweden's membership of Nato, it's a question of whether it will be a benefit or a burden."
Another possible reason for the delay is that Turkey could be planning to use ratification of Sweden's accession as a bargaining chip with the US, in order to be able to buy an American F16 fighter jet.
“Biden is not able to guarantee that Turkey would get the F16s, congress is not willing to give the F16s in advance, so it’s a bit of a game of chicken, like a hostage exchange - do you give the money first or do you get the hostage first, to be blunt about it," Levin told The Local.
"But given the measures that Sweden has taken, my sense is that right now, much hangs on Turkey-US negotiations."
He does not believe, however, that Turkey will be able to delay the process much longer.
"I find it unlikely that Erdoğan would hold out and maintain his veto on everything that he’s currently vetoing. So the Swedish accession as well as the very ambitious secret Nato plans and restructuring. If that were the case he would single-handedly turn Vilnius into a political disaster for Nato."
On July 5th, Sweden's Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson met with US President Joe Biden in Washington to discuss the Nato process, with a meeting between Sweden and Turkey's foreign ministers scheduled for the following day.
What about Hungary?
Unlike Turkey, Hungary has not made any specific requests or stipulations for Sweden to gain its approval. Hungary's parliament will meet for the last time on Friday, July 7th, before taking a summer break, and a vote on approving Sweden's Nato application is not scheduled before then.
"My party put in a request to vote on it, but the request was voted down," opposition politician Ágnes Vadai told TT newswire from Budapest.
Hungary has previously stated that it will not delay Sweden's application, and that it will not be the last country to approve it, which suggests that it will approve Sweden's application at the same time as Turkey.
"I also think it’s a case of solidarity between Orbán and Erdoğan, two leaders that often get criticism for being authoritarian from the EU," Levin said.
"So Orbán seems to be wanting to back Erdoğan up so he’s not alone in this. At the same time, he’s made it clear that he doesn’t want to be the last person to ratify."
However, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has described political relations between Sweden and Hungary as "awfully wrong", stating that relations between the two countries must improve before Hungary can ratify Sweden's application.
"I read Hungary as a sort of canary in the coal mine for what Turkey is likely to do," Levin said. "If Hungary moves to ratify then that’s a signal that Erdoğan has decided to ratify. And the opposite is true, too."
Could Russian influence on Turkey or Hungary have anything to do with it?
It's possible that Turkey's ties to Russia could have something to do with its delay in approving Sweden's application, although Levin believes that Russia's ties with Hungary are closer.
"It’s undoubtedly the case that Turkey has ties to Russia, whether in the form of energy imports, Russian tourism, export of agricultural goods, inflow of foreign capital via Russia, and now allegations that Turkey is serving as some kind of conduit for sanctions evasions to Russia," he said.
"My suspicion is that those ties are stronger in Hungary’s case, but is something that quite possibly also plays in to everyone’s calculations."
So, when will Sweden join Nato?
It's hard to say. If we assume that Hungary does not vote on Sweden's accession to Nato before the summer break – which looks like it will be the case – then Sweden won't be able to join Nato until this autumn, at the earliest.
That's only if Erdoğan changes his mind before then, paving the way for Turkey to approve Sweden's Nato application.
Although that sounds unlikely, anything is possible.
"That’s the problem studying Turkey, a lot of it is up to one man’s decision, and that’s practically impossible to say," Levin said.
"The question for me is whether the Swedish Nato accession will sort of tag along if there’s a compromise on other issues, if he lifts his veto on those, that’s an open question. Because the Quran burnings and the PKK demonstrations, they’ve made it difficult for him to say yes, I could well imagine that he holds out. It’s not possible to say."
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