{"id":344093,"date":"2024-03-11T15:49:22","date_gmt":"2024-03-11T14:49:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/2024\/03\/11\/bandiera-svezia-nato-bruxelles\/"},"modified":"2024-03-13T18:46:38","modified_gmt":"2024-03-13T17:46:38","slug":"brussels-swedens-flag-flies-at-nato-headquarters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/2024\/03\/11\/brussels-swedens-flag-flies-at-nato-headquarters\/","title":{"rendered":"Brussels, Sweden’s flag flies at NATO headquarters"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brussels \u2013\u00a0And now 32 flags are flying outside NATO headquarters in Brussels. With the flag-raising ceremony held today (March 11), Sweden made its first official appearance as a new member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization<\/strong>, bringing to fruition the latest phase of Atlantic Alliance enlargement in the 75th anniversary year since the treaty was signed in Washington in 1949. “NATO membership is good for Sweden, for the stability of the North, and for the security of the entire Alliance<\/strong>,\u201d made it clear the Secretary-General of the intergovernmental military organization, Jens Stoltenberg<\/strong>, welcoming Sweden\u2019s Prime Minister, Ulf Kristersson<\/strong>, to the headquarters in Brussels, three days after the completion of Stockholm\u2019s membership process.<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Stoltenberg<\/a>
The flag-raising ceremony in Brussels (March 11, 2024)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In less than a year, Stoltenberg saw two new flags hoisted, the Swedish and the Finnish (on April 4 2023), just before the end of his term as secretary-general in October this year: \u201cSweden\u2019s membership proves once again that NATO\u2019s door remains open. No one can close it. Every nation has the right to choose its own path<\/strong>.\u201d This is a clear response to accusations by Russia\u2019s autocrat, Vladimir Putin<\/strong>, and to the controversy over the issue of enlargement of the Atlantic Alliance itself in reference to the aspiration of Ukraine to join it in the future. \u201cWhen Putin launched his full-scale invasion two years ago, he wanted less NATO and more control over his neighbours.<\/strong> He wanted to destroy Ukraine as a
\nsovereign state, but he failed<\/strong>,\u201d Stoltenberg emphatically stressed at the press conference, \u201cNATO is now bigger and stronger. Ukraine is closer to NATO than ever
\nbefore, and as the brave Ukrainians continue to fight for their freedom,
\nwe stand by their side.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Stoltenberg<\/a><\/figure>\n

From left: Prime Minister of Sweden, Ulf Kristersson, and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg (March 11, 2024)<\/p>\n

On the subject of the 32 allies\u2019 support for Kyiv, Stoltenberg reiterated that \u201csurrender is not peace\u201d<\/strong>\u2014putting a period to NATO\u2019s position concerning the weekend words of the head of the Catholic Church, Pope Francis<\/strong>\u2014and \u201cwe will continue to strengthen Ukraine to show Putin that he will not get what he wants on the battlefield,\u201d because \u201cPutin started this war and he could end it today. But Ukraine does not have that option<\/strong>.\u201d On the same wavelength is the Swedish premier: \u201cThe security situation in our region has not been this serious since World War II, and Russia will continue to pose a threat to Euro-Atlantic security for the foreseeable future<\/strong>.\u201d That is why Sweden has applied to join the Alliance \u201cto achieve security, but also to ensure it,\u201d Kristersson assured, although he ruled out the need to host nuclear weapons or permanent bases on national territory: \u201cThere are no plans to expand the number of NATO allied countries with nuclear weapons<\/strong>.\u201d Sweden\u2019s accession protocol was signed (along with Finland) on July 5, 2022, after a strategic historic turn of the national security policy traditionally linked to non-alignment. Since then, it has been an uphill road for Stockholm. More than 19 months after the Madrid summit, Hungary had remained earlier this year the only member country not to have formally approved<\/strong> Stockholm\u2019s entry into the Atlantic Alliance<\/strong>, when Turkey had also put an end <\/a>to its very strong blockade. A month and a half ago, the Hungarian premier, Viktor Orb\u00e1n<\/strong>, had formally dropped his short obstructionism<\/a> but his Fidesz party had not, boycotting the extraordinary session earlier this month. Finding himself under pressure <\/a>from the other members\u2014and cornered by Kristersson\u2019s visit\u2014the Hungarian premier finally pushed his party members to drop the resistance. The go-ahead from Budapest <\/a>finally came last February 26, after the meeting in the Hungarian capital between Prime Ministers Orb\u00e1n and Kristersson<\/strong> to discuss defence and security cooperation.<\/p>\n

Sweden and Finland, the latest members of NATO<\/h3>\n

To become a member of NATO, a country must send a formal application<\/strong> previously approved by its national parliament. This opens two stages of discussions with the Alliance<\/strong>, which do not necessarily pave the way for membership: the first, the \u201cIntensified Dialogue\u201d, delves into the country\u2019s rationale for applying; the second, the \u201cMembership Action Plan\u201d, prepares the potential candidate to meet the necessary political, economic, military, and legal requirements<\/a> (democratic system, market economy, respect for the rule of law and fundamental rights, standards of intelligence and contribution to military operations, aptitude for peaceful conflict resolution). This second round of discussions was introduced in 1999 <\/strong>after the accession of Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic to address the process with would-be members with political systems other than those of the Alliance\u2019s founding countries, such as the former Soviet countries.<\/p>\n

\"Jens<\/a><\/figure>\n

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg<\/p>\n

The accession procedure formally begins with the application of Article 10 of the North Atlantic Treaty<\/a>, which provides that \u201cthe parties may, by unanimous agreement, invite for accession any other European state capable of furthering the development of the principles of this Treaty and contributing to the security of the North Atlantic region.\u201d The resolution must be voted on unanimously by all member countries<\/strong>. At this point, the accession talks<\/strong> open at headquarters in Brussels to confirm the candidate\u2019s willingness and ability to meet the obligations of membership: political and military issues first, security and economic issues second. After the accession talks, which are, in effect, a phase of negotiations, the candidate country\u2019s foreign minister sends a letter of intent to the Alliance Secretary General.<\/p>\n

The accession process ends with the Protocol of Accession<\/strong>, which is prepared by an amendment to the Washington Treaty<\/a>, the founding text of the Alliance. This Protocol<\/strong> must be ratified by all members, with procedures varying by country: in Italy, the vote of the Parliament in a joint session is required to authorize the President of the Republic to ratify the international treaty. Once the Accession Protocol has been amended, the NATO Secretary General formally invites the candidate country to join the Alliance, and the agreement is deposited at the U.S. State Department headquarters in Washington<\/strong>. At the end of this process, the candidate is officially a North Atlantic Treaty Organization member.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Before the end of his term as secretary-general of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Jens Stoltenberg sees the completion of the Atlantic Alliance enlargement that began nearly two years ago with calls from Stockholm and Helsinki to unite in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5647,"featured_media":344014,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"source_name":"","source_url":"","via_name":"","via_url":"","override_template":"0","override":[{"template":"1","single_blog_custom":"","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_share_counter":"0","show_view_counter":"0","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"1","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"1","show_popup_post":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"0","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"0"}],"override_image_size":"0","image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post":"0","trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post":"0","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","sponsored_post_name":"","sponsored_post_url":"","sponsored_post_logo_enable":"0","sponsored_post_logo":"","sponsored_post_desc":"","disable_ad":"0"},"jnews_primary_category":{"id":"","hide":""},"jnews_override_counter":{"override_view_counter":"0","view_counter_number":"0","override_share_counter":"0","share_counter_number":"0","override_like_counter":"0","like_counter_number":"0","override_dislike_counter":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[25707],"tags":[26482,26318,26317,27221,26559,27173],"class_list":["post-344093","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world-politics","tag-nato-en-2","tag-jens-stoltenberg-and","tag-enlargement-nato-en","tag-swedenat","tag-ulf-kristersson-a"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/344093","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5647"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=344093"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/344093\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":344797,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/344093\/revisions\/344797"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/344014"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=344093"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=344093"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=344093"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}