Parliament ratifies accession of Sweden, Finland to NATO
The government's draft resolutions aimed at ratifying the accession of Finland and Sweden to NATO were approved with favourable votes from PS, PSD, Chega, IL, PAN and Livre.
The Portuguese Parliament on Friday ratified the accession of Finland and Sweden to NATO, joining the 26 members of the Alliance that have already done so, with the PCP (Communist party) and BE (Left Bloc) voting against.
The government’s draft resolutions aimed at ratifying the accession of Finland and Sweden to NATO were approved with favourable votes from PS, PSD, Chega, IL, PAN and Livre.
After the vote, the parties in favour of this ratification stood up from their seats and clapped their hands, turning to the ambassadors of these two countries who were present in the galleries. The PCP and BE MPs remained seated.
On Thursday Spain and Greece ratified the accession of the two countries to NATO and now, with the approval by the Portuguese parliament, only three members of the Alliance out of a total of 30 remain who have not yet done so: Slovakia, Turkey and Hungary.
The Government’s draft resolutions on the matter – approved by the Cabinet on July 14 – entered parliament on 19 July, according to the parliament’s website, having been referred to the parliamentary committees of Foreign Affairs and Portuguese Communities and National Defence.
As the last plenary session before the parliamentary holidays was on July 21, the motions for resolutions in question were referred to September.
In the two texts – one dedicated to Sweden, the other to Finland – the government reproduces the same arguments as to why the two countries should join the Atlantic Alliance.
According to the executive, led by the Portuguese Socialist Party, both Finland and Sweden meet “currently the necessary conditions for membership of NATO, as a result of cooperation in various areas, within the parameters set by the Alliance”.
The executive stresses that the accession of two member states of the European Union (EU) to NATO “will contribute to strengthening the complementary relationship, in the field of security and defence, between the two organisations, in scrupulous respect for the principles inscribed in the respective constituent treaties.
“It will also contribute to the strengthening of the Atlantic Alliance as one of the basic structures for security and defence, which corresponds to two of the main national objectives in the area of foreign policy,” read the texts in question, signed by the prime minister, António Costa, the minister of foreign affairs, João Gomes Cravinho, and the assistant minister for parliamentary affairs, Ana Catarina Mendes.
Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on February 24, Sweden and Finland – two traditionally neutral countries – handed in an application for NATO membership on May 28.
After initial resistance from Turkey, the NATO heads of state and government, meeting at a summit in Madrid, officially invited Sweden and Finland on June 29 to become members of the Alliance.
To this end, the accession protocols of the two countries were formally signed by the ambassadors of the 30 NATO member states on July 5 and must now be ratified by the parliaments of all the Atlantic Alliance countries and communicated to the US government in order to enter into force.
