Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan remains harsh towards Sweden in the NATO process.
As recently as last week, he flagged that he can consider only approving Finland for the time being - if NATO so proposes.
However, Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg still wants to have a joint Swedish-Finnish entry.
- I am happy that Sweden and Finland stood together in the process all the way.
I believe that it is a strength for NATO that both countries become members and it is a strength for each other that they stand together.
So I am working for us to find a solution where both become members as soon as possible, says Stoltenberg at a Nordic press conference ahead of this week's NATO Defense Ministers meeting in Brussels.
In on most things
This summer, Sweden and Finland received the status of invitees – invited or prospective members – in NATO.
Thus, almost all doors are open to NATO's various meetings, even if you do not yet have any voting rights.
This week's meeting will now be the next step towards full entry.
It is the first ministerial meeting since the invitee status was given and means that Peter Hultqvist (S) and his Finnish colleague Antti Kaikkonen are moved up another step in the pecking order.
There is still quite a lot left.
Sweden and Finland must not participate when - or if - there are discussions about their own or others' negotiations on membership.
And not when other NATO countries discuss nuclear weapons planning in a special format, NPG, on Thursday morning.