President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan at the presentation ceremony of the National Combat Aircraft KAAN on May 1, 2023 in Ankara, Türkiye. (Yavuz Ozden/ dia images via Getty Images )
Editor’s Note: Hours after publication of this story, NATO announced that Turkey has agreed to move forward with Sweden’s nomination for NATO membership. For the latest on this story, please click here.
WASHINGTON — Any remaining hopes that this week’s NATO summit might see Turkey lift its hold on Sweden seemed to be dashed today after Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced he wants European Union membership before Sweden can join the military alliance.
Erdogen dropped the political bombshell while speaking to reporters ahead of the NATO summit in Vilnius, Lithuania, per multiple news reports. He added that he will reiterate the call while meeting with NATO leaders this week.
“I am calling from here on these countries that are making Turkey wait at the door of the European Union for more than 50 years,” he said, according to Reuters. “First, come and open the way for Turkey at the European Union, and then we will open the way for Sweden, just as we did for Finland.”
The NATO and EU are separate political entities, although there is heavy crossover. Among the 31 NATO nations, only nine are not part of the EU: Albania, Canada, Montenegro, Norway, North Macedonia, Iceland, Turkey, the United Kingdom and the United States.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said he “supports” Turkey’s EU goal, but stressed that Sweden has met the requirements for NATO membership. He stated that “Sweden is following up to address legitimate security concerns by Turkey.” (Stoltenberg is the former leader of non-EU nation Norway, and as NATO head his priority is just what will strengthen the alliance, so his support for Turkey’s EU idea makes sense geopolitically.)
But Olaf Scholz, the leader of EU powerhouse Germany, seemed to reject the idea of linking the two issues, putting an immediate damper on the idea. “Sweden meets all the requirements for NATO membership,” Scholz said, according to the AFP. “The other question is one that is not connected with it and that is why I do not think it should be seen as a connected issue.”
Sweden and Finland announced in Spring 2022 that they would end their decades-long non-aligned stance, as a direct result of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. While the majority of the NATO nations moved quickly to ratify their membership, Turkey and Hungary both delayed the process — but said early on that the issue was mostly with Stockholm. In March, Sweden gave Finland tacit approval to move ahead with a solo bid, which was rapidly approved.
The hope among NATO leadership was that after Erdogan’s election victory, he would use the Vilnius Summit to repair ties with Western nations, and that even if outright membership for Sweden would not occur, there would be significant movement in the right direction. While circumstances could still change, it now appears the movement is going in the wrong direction for Stockholm.
