Sweden and Finland will make key choices for "NATO membership" in the near future. At the end of June, NATO will hold a summit in Madrid, Spain. In the next month or so, what are the time nodes worth paying attention to regarding the "accession" of the two countries?
May 12: Finnish President Niinistö will announce his position on whether Finland will join NATO. In Finland, the application for NATO membership is decided jointly by the President and the Government of Finland.
14 May: Finland's ruling Social Democratic Party (SDP) decides how to respond to an application to join NATO. The majority of other political parties in the Finnish Parliament already approve of Finland's accession to NATO.
On the same day, an informal meeting of NATO foreign ministers was held, to which the foreign ministers of Sweden and Finland had been invited.
15 May: Sweden's ruling Social Democratic Party (SPD) considers the outcome of an internal dialogue within sweden on joining NATO and will decide whether to join NATO.
From June 29 to 30, the NATO summit was held in Madrid, Spain. Presumably, Sweden and Finland may submit applications to join NATO during the summit.
There are also different views within NATO on the two countries joining. On the 11th local time, British Prime Minister Johnson set off to visit Sweden and Finland, and has now arrived in Sweden. Johnson's visit will focus on the Russian-Ukrainian conflict. Some analysts believe that this move has the meaning of "ensuring that the position of the two countries joining NATO is firmer.".
Earlier, Croatian President Milanovic said that if Sweden and Finland apply to join NATO, he will use the veto power unless NATO first solves the Balkan problem. Among the unresolved issues in the Balkans mentioned by Milanović are the non-accession of Romania and Bulgaria to the Schengen Area and the postponement of negotiations on the accession of Albania and North Macedonia to the European Union.