(Ottawa) Canada warmly welcomes Finland and Sweden’s NATO candidacies; the Trudeau government hopes to ratify them at full speed.
Posted at 12:55 p.m.
Updated at 1:11 p.m.
Canada’s Foreign Affairs Minister, Mélanie Joly, insisted that the two countries should definitely join NATO, but that moreover, it had to be done quickly. She made this plea during a press conference call from Brussels, Belgium, on Monday.
After Finland the day before, it was Sweden’s turn to formalize its candidacy for NATO on Monday, a historic shift of the two non-aligned countries to the bosom of the alliance, in direct reaction to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
The unanimity and parliamentary ratification of the 30 current members of the alliance is necessary to bring in a new member. The Canadian Parliament will therefore be called upon to give its seal of approval to the Swedish and Finnish initiatives.
“My goal, and the government’s goal, is certainly to be one of the first countries to ratify their membership in NATO. Unlike several countries, we have a process that is very fast, ”she said on the other end of the line.
And in order to prepare the ground, Minister Joly said she met with the representatives of the other parties in the House of Commons, where she found that the question was “non-partisan” and enjoyed a “broad consensus”.
Therefore, the ratification could be done “over the next few days”, she said, taking stock of her participation in the meetings of the G7 foreign ministers, NATO, as well as the meeting of the Member States of the European Union.
“It’s something you can do very quickly,” she said.
Turkish reluctance
One of the member countries, Turkey, has displayed its hostility to the integration of the two Nordic states, under the pretext that they would serve as a “hostel for terrorists of the PKK”, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, which is considered as a terrorist organization by Ankara, argued Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
On this subject, Mélanie Joly pointed out that “bilateral issues do not [devaient] not delay the accession” of the countries, because it is a “historic moment” both for NATO and for Canada, in particular because it would increase to seven – out of eight – the number of Arctic countries who are part of the club.
“We are going to be part of the various diplomatic talks to find a solution,” she noted.
As for Russian President Vladimir Putin, he affirmed that the prospect of a Swedish-Finnish entry into NATO “is not[ait] not an immediate threat”, but that Moscow would react to deployments of “military infrastructure” in the two countries, warned the Russian president.
Stockholm expects to be a member within a year at the most, Swedish Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson said at a press conference on Monday. “We are leaving an era to enter a new one,” she said.
With Agence France-Presse