The entry into NATO of Sweden and Finland, to debate in Congress

The agreement will be approved with the support of the PP, but United We Can still not reveal its vote

MADRID, 11 Sep. (EUROPA PRESS) -

The Congress will ratify this Thursday the accession protocol of Sweden and Finland to the Atlantic Alliance, a text that will be processed by the urgent procedure and in a single reading, that is, with a single debate in plenary, without the need to spend by the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

The two agreements, a protocol with each country signed at the Madrid Summit in July, were sent to Parliament in the Council of Ministers on August 1, but until last week they could not be qualified by the Congress Table, since that the two summer months are outside the ordinary period of sessions.

The first decision was to apply the urgent procedure that the Government had requested, which implies reducing all parliamentary deadlines by half. Specifically, it was agreed that the groups would present their amendments no later than this Friday.

But, in addition, the forecast is that the accession protocols follow the path of direct processing and in a single reading, that is, that they are only discussed in plenary session of the Chamber, without going through a presentation or commission. This procedure must be endorsed by the Plenary next Tuesday and it is assumed that it will not cause problems.

Once this procedure has been completed, the ratification debate is scheduled for Thursday, the 15th. Spain is one of the few Alliance countries that have not yet completed this parliamentary process, an essential requirement for the effective incorporation of Sweden and Finland.

According to the latest balance from the United States Department of State, Slovenia was the twenty-first NATO member that gave its formal support, thus joining countries such as Germany, France, Italy, the United Kingdom or the United States, which have already processed entry into NATO of Swedes and Finns.

At the beginning of September, only nine allies had pending the process. Apart from Spain, formal ratification was still pending from Croatia, the Czech Republic, Greece, Montenegro, Portugal, Slovakia, Hungary and Turkey. Of particular concern is Ankara's approval after it blocked the entry negotiations process for several weeks alleging alleged collusion with the terrorist group Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).

In Spain, it is taken for granted that the parliamentary vote will go ahead, although United We Can has avoided advancing whether it will give its support. For the time being, it has confirmed to Europa Press that it will not present a complete amendment. The confederal group maintains that NATO is an "obsolete" organization, although it also says that it respects the decision made by the Nordic countries.

Ratification is the longest stage in the process of adhering to the military organization, with the bureaucratic procedure of all the allies who, in turn, have different validation systems and involve, in many cases, parliamentary votes.

Once all the members of the alliance and the candidates have approved these protocols, the next step takes them to Washington, where the documents are deposited with the United States Government, specifically with the State Department. It is not until all are delivered that the aspiring country becomes a member of NATO.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg called for the process to be speeded up as much as possible in order to have rapid ratification, recognizing that the entire process will take months.

Although NATO has highlighted that the application for membership has been resolved favorably in 7 weeks, being the fastest entry process in the history of the Alliance, the truth is that when Sweden and Finland jointly applied to join NATO on Last May 18, the Atlantic organization was betting that its accession would be even more agile and that it would be ready for the Madrid summit at the end of June, given the political closeness and military capacity of Sweden and Finland and the context of war in Ukraine.