Finland moves toward NATO membership

Finland moved a step closer toward joining the NATO military alliance on Wednesday after lawmakers ratified the nation's bid for membership with a vote of 184 to 7 in Parliament.

Public opinion in Finland supports NATO membership and Helsinki wants to progress with its bid before the general election in April, reported Agence France-Presse news agency, or AFP.

Having held neutral status for decades, both Sweden and Finland applied to join NATO last year after the outbreak of conflict between Russia and Ukraine.

NATO requires unanimous approval from its members to approve accession, but two of its 30 member countries, Turkiye and Hungary, are yet to formally endorse the bids from Sweden and Finland.

Sweden's campaign is being obstructed by Turkiye, which accuses it of supporting the Kurdistan Workers' Party, which Ankara considers to be a terrorist group.

Talks between Ankara and Sweden were put on hold after an activist burned a copy of the Quran in front of the Turkish embassy in Stockholm in January.

Finland is said to face fewer diplomatic hurdles than Stockholm, and wants to push ahead with its effort to join the Western alliance rather than wait to make a joint bid with Sweden, reported AFP.

Finland's vote on speeding up the accession process coincided with a visit to Helsinki by Jens Stoltenberg, the NATO secretary-general.

In a joint news conference on Tuesday with Sanna Marin, Finland's prime minister, Stoltenberg said membership for Finland and Sweden was a "top priority". Both Scandinavian countries meet NATO's entry criteria, he said.

"My message has been for a long time... that time has come to finalize the ratification process. The time is now to ratify in both Budapest and in Ankara," he said.

Stoltenberg urged Turkiye and Hungary to urgently approve the accession of both Nordic nations. He noted that the Hungarian Parliament has "made it clear" that it would deliberate ratification within a few days, and that he hoped for an imminent and "positive" vote.

Marin's government wants to move ahead with the bid and avoid any potential political vacuum, with elections due on April 2, reported Euronews.

In a preliminary vote last spring, there was near-unanimous support in the Finnish Parliament for joining NATO, and the legislature has now approved a law permitting the country to join the organization.

Speaking at the news briefing, Marin hinted that the delayed accession process for the two countries risked damaging NATO's authority.

Marin said: "We would have hoped to become members of NATO already. Finland and Sweden fulfil all the criteria, as has been mentioned, and we are yet waiting. And of course, this strains the open-door policy of NATO; it's also to do with NATO's credibility."

Finland announced on Tuesday that it has started construction of a fence along parts of its 1,340-km border with Russia "to boost security".

A 3-km pilot project in southeastern Finland will be completed in June, with more construction planned between 2023 and 2025.