Is Turkey now paving the way for Finland and Sweden to join NATO?

Diplomacy ahead of the Alliance's summit in Madrid on Wednesday and Thursday raised expectations of a last-minute breakthrough.

On Monday, representatives of all three countries met at the Brussels headquarters, with Ankara represented by the deputy foreign minister and a close presidential adviser.

Magdalena Andersson was also a guest there;

the Swedish Prime Minister met with Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg.

Erdogan, in turn, has invited Andersson, Finnish President Sauli Niinistö and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to a meeting in Madrid on Tuesday – the first at the leadership level since Erdogan blocked the two countries' admission in mid-May.

Thomas Gutschker

Political correspondent for the European Union, NATO and the Benelux countries based in Brussels.

  • Follow I follow

Under normal circumstances, that would point to an imminent solution, as diplomats have been touting “good progress” in the negotiations for days and stating the informal goal of an agreement ahead of the start of the Alliance summit.

However, it was also said on Monday: Erdogan is Erdogan, i.e. unpredictable;

no one can look inside his head.

Stoltenberg, who acts as a mediator, expressed his usual reserve on Monday.

"I will not make any promises, but I can assure you that we are actively working to ensure progress," he said in his pre-summit press conference.

Turkey demands a tougher course from both countries in fighting groups that it classifies as terrorists.

This is undisputed for the Kurdish PKK, which operates in Eastern Anatolia and is also seen as a terrorist group by the European Union.

Ankara wants the Syrian-Kurdish people's militia YPG to be classified in the same way.

However, this group is supported by the Americans in the fight against "Islamic State" in Syria - which ties NATO's hands.

Turkey is also demanding that Finland and Sweden supply it with weapons that it could use to fight Kurdish groups.

Both countries have so far rejected this, as have many NATO partners.

Unlike them, however, they can now be blackmailed because they cannot be accepted into the alliance without Turkish approval.

The crucial question is

what concessions they can make in this situation and how far Erdogan will go.

Recently, diplomats have also said that a "tsunami" will build up against him in Madrid if the conflict is not resolved.

300,000 operational soldiers instead of 40,000

This is important for the alliance so that it does not go into a meeting divided in which it wants to demonstrate its unity in the face of Russian aggression against Ukraine.

In fact, the most important decisions have been prepared in such a way that the heads of state and government can accept them in their first working session on Wednesday morning.

Stoltenberg already gave a preview of it.

The new strategic concept, which the allies have been working on since last autumn, will classify Russia as the “most important and direct threat to our security”.

China, on the other hand, is seen as a “challenge to our security, interests and values”;

that's two tiers below and in line with the EU's view of Beijing as a strategic rival.