President Joe Biden will host Sweden’s Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson on Wednesday at the White House, as the Nordic country’s path to NATO membership remains up in the air.
Sweden has expressed a strong desire to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), citing heightened security concerns following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last year.
NATO decisions, however, are reached through a consensus-based procedure involving all member states. Hungary and Turkey have been the opposing parties to Stockholm’s application.
The Turkish government has accused Sweden of being overly accommodating toward certain groups, including militant Kurdish groups and individuals linked to a 2016 coup attempt.
Recent Quran-burning protests in Sweden have also enraged Turkey.
While the protests are permitted under Sweden’s free speech laws, the country’s leaders have denounced the act.
Leaders from NATO countries will meet in Lithuania’s capital, Vilnius, next week to discuss critical global security challenges. The summit, slated for July 11–12, will bring together heads of state, military officials, and diplomats from the alliance’s 31 member nations at a critical juncture as threats from Russia and China increase.
Kristersson last month expressed his country’s desire to join NATO before or during the July summit in Vilnius.
Both Sweden and Finland resisted joining the alliance for decades, opting for neutrality and non-alignment. However, following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last year, both countries abandoned those long-standing positions and formally requested membership in NATO.
Following months of delay, the Turkish parliament unanimously confirmed Finland’s membership on March 30, allowing Finland to become the 31st member of the military alliance in April.
While the European Union’s economic and diplomatic tools may be used to force Hungary to withdraw its opposition to Sweden’s membership, the bigger concern is Turkey, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), an American think tank.
“I think it would be a real failure for the alliance if it’s not able to get Sweden over the goal line here, and it’s a failure because it’s being held up by one member, Turkey,” Max Bergmann, director of the Europe, Russia, and Eurasia program at the CSIS, said during a press briefing about the upcoming NATO summit in Vilnius.
“And the alliance thus far has played very nice with Turkey. … But you know, now the rubber is sort of hitting the road here, and it really calls into question whether this is an alliance that Turkey belongs to,” he added.
Aside from Sweden, three more countries—Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, and Ukraine—have stated their aspirations to join NATO.
Kiev formally applied to join the alliance last year, however, it’s unlikely to join until the war in Ukraine ends. Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty establishes the principle of collective defense, which means that any attack on a NATO member “shall be considered an attack against them all.”
Ukraine’s membership would essentially be tantamount to a declaration of war on Russia. So, I don’t think that’s on the cards,” Sean Monaghan, visiting fellow in the Europe, Russia, and Eurasia program at the CSIS, said during the briefing.
“But beyond NATO membership when the war ends, there is a wide spectrum of views among allies which will need to find some kind of consensus at Vilnius,” he said.
