Finland’s President Niinistö defends joining NATO without Sweden

President Sauli Niinistö has defended Finland’s decision to proceed with accession to NATO without its neighbour Sweden on the grounds that rejecting Turkey’s pending ratification of its candidacy would have been problematic.

“Should we have rejected ratification by Turkey? That sounds a bit crazy,” Niinistö said in an interview with Sweden’s SVT national public service that was broadcast in full on Saturday evening.

“It would have been a very problematic situation, if we had said no to Ankara,” he added.

Niinistö’s comments came after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced on Friday that his government would begin the ratification process for Finland.

While he had always emphasized that Finland would go “hand-in-hand” with Sweden to the extent that the decision was theirs to make, ratification ultimately lay with Turkey and Hungary, the two NATO member still to ratify the applications, Niinistö said.

After decades of neutrality, the two Nordic countries applied to join the trans-Atlantic defence alliance last May following Russia’s full invasion of Ukraine. They made clear that they wished to join together.

Turkey continues to block Swedish accession on the grounds that Sweden refuses to extradite 120 people seen by Turkey as terrorists.

Hungary too has yet to ratify the Finnish application, with a decision expected on March 27.