Our article has been updated.
On Wednesday morning, we reported that the signing of the protocol of Swedish accession was officially announced in the Magyar Közlöny. In the article, we also discussed what steps are still needed to complete the process.
Things picked up on Thursday
The Reuters news agency reported in the early afternoon, citing a statement from the Swedish government, that the government will meet on Thursday,
and they give Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson and Foreign Minister Tobias Billström the green light to hand over the documents necessary for accession in Washington.
The Swedish prime minister and the foreign minister traveled to Washington the other day. Incidentally, Péter Szijjártó also did the same, who already wrote in his Facebook post on Wednesday that there were hours left until Sweden’s accession.
The US State Department has announced that the accession process is coming to an end
Reuters already wrote about it in its article published in the early afternoon, that the representatives of the Swedish government will hand over the documents to the Americans on Thursday, and that Sweden will become NATO’s 32nd member with immediate effect. However, it was not written exactly when this happens.
On the other hand, the Swedish prime minister announced at 2:45 p.m. that NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg had officially invited them to join the alliance and that Sweden would soon become NATO’s 32nd member.
NATO SG Stoltenberg has just informed me that all NATO member states have accepted our accession protocol, and has invited Sweden to accede to the North Atlantic Treaty. Sweden will soon be NATO’s 32nd member.
— SwedishPM (@SwedishPM) March 7, 2024
Meanwhile, the US State Department said that the Swedes had met all the conditions for accession, thus concluding the accession protocol.
On March 7, 2024, Protocol II on the Accession of the Kingdom of Sweden attached to the North Atlantic Treaty was fulfilled. entry into force conditions specified in Article
they wrote.
In the next few hours, some more official ceremonies will take place in this regard. It is known that Ulf Kristersson will meet Foreign Minister Antony Blinken at 17:15 (Hungarian time) and then hand over the documents necessary for accession. With the transfer of these documents, Sweden officially becomes a member of NATO.
Sweden is a strong democracy with a strong military that shares our values and worldview. With Sweden as our NATO ally, the United States and our allies will be even safer
– wrote the White House in a recently issued statement. However, the last ceremony related to joining will take place only on Monday: according to previous news, the Swedish flag will be raised in Brussels, in front of the NATO headquarters.
The accession marks the end of Sweden’s long period of military neutrality. By the way, the Swedes have already held joint military exercises with NATO and European countries in recent years: they are already active participants in the exercise that started recently, at the beginning of March.
Péter Szijjártó also announced that the document had been submitted
The ratification document for Sweden’s NATO accession has been submitted to the US State Department, Péter Szijjártó, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade, who personally delivered the document to Washington, announced on Thursday.
This happened in the morning of today, at 8 a.m. local time, i.e. at 2 p.m. at home. On my instructions, our country’s ambassador to Washington, Szabolcs Takács, went to the US State Department, brought the ratification document, [….] and thus we have done all the work on the part of Hungary in order for Sweden to become a member of NATO
– announced (the US State Department was then able to issue the above announcement after the handover that all the conditions for Sweden’s accession had been met).
According to MTI, the Hungarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs also announced that Szijjártó had a telephone conversation with his Swedish colleague. The Minister of Foreign Affairs stated that in order for the ratification of Sweden’s NATO membership to be recently approved by the Parliament, it was essential to rebuild the trust between Hungary and Sweden, for which the two Prime Ministers also did a lot, including by extending the defense agreement, which provided a sufficient basis for the process to move forward. .
Official: Sweden has been welcomed as a member of NATO
In the meantime, the ceremony began, as part of which Ulf Kristersson and Tobias Billström handed over the accession documents to Antony Blinken.
The event apparently took place in a good mood, as did the handing over of the document, after which the US Secretary of State greeted the Swedes with a warm “welcome”. Then he said:
Let me be the first [személy]who welcomes Sweden as a signatory to the Washington Treaty and as the thirty-second member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
Blinken also joked that it took a long time to connect, but it finally happened. He also talked about how
Sweden gave up almost two hundred years of neutrality in order to join NATO.
(The Nordic countries were last officially at war during Napoleon’s time, in 1814, although they played a smaller or larger role in certain military conflicts later).
Antony Blinken also noted that before the Russian invasion in 2022, only a third of the Swedish population supported joining NATO (in the light of public opinion polls conducted at the time). In addition, he spoke about the fact that Swedes share the same values ( democracy, rule of law, etc.), which are at the heart of NATO, and that NATO is not an aggressor, but a defense alliance whose purpose is to deter aggression.
In his own speech, Ulf Kristersson called the accession a historic moment. He personally thanked Antony Blinken and US President Joe Biden for their efforts in this regard.
Today is the victory of freedom. Sweden made a free, democratic, sovereign decision to join NATO […] This proves the strength of Sweden and NATO
Kristersson said, also hinting that the Swedish nation supported this decision.
The US Department of State broadcast the event live on YouTube:
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2024-03-08 12:05:37