>

It's like a wholesome Stockholm syndrome kind of thing on a national scale hundreds of years in the making.
Hint: July is after the elections in Turkey.
A good guess to think things might change by July.
I believe Finland already suggested last week to let the talks pause for a while. >

I'm a Finn and I think this is definitely a wise choice. Personally I have no faith in Erdogan saying something else today or tomorrow anyway so it's better to just wait for his tantrum to end and join with our neighbors to the west. >

Is there any benefit for anyone from Finland not joining first?
Attacking Sweden without going through Finland isn't impossible, but it's a lot harder than the other way around. I could see why Finland may want Sweden to wait, but no reason why Sweden wouldn't tell Finland to go first. >

The real beneficiary is Finno-Swedish relations, as well as NATO as a whole. Going ahead on your own, as well as this whole game of division played by Erdogan, is antithetical to a defensive pact. >

I totally understand why Finland wouldn't say "sorry Sweden, I'm joining".
What I don't understand is why Sweden doesn't say "you go ahead, it's better for us both". >

Sweden obviously has no say over what Finland, a sovereign country decides to do. However I think most of us Swedes would be understanding if Finland decided to join on their own. They are in a more exposed position than Sweden geographically, and it would increase safety for Sweden as well by nearly surrounding us with NATO countries. However most are probably grateful that Finland will join together with Sweden when/if the time comes, as was always the plan.
We have a saying in Sweden going back to the WW2 days, which translates to "The Finnish cause is ours". Erdogan is trying to cause a divide among the Nordic countries to strengthen his bargaining power, but he's underestimating how close the countries are and how much we view each other as brothers and sisters (yes, even you Danes). Besides, even if Finland tried to join NATO on their own, it's very likely Erdogan would come up with some other nonsense reason for why they can't join since the core issue isn't really about Finland and Sweden in the first place. >

Are you sure about the Danes? It’s okay, this is a safe space. >

Only us the Danes are allowed to pick on Sweden, if anyone els picks on Sweden then they must be prepared for some "Bøllebank" >

Sweden is the soft squishy center of Nordics we all must protect. >

Thank you my Finnish brothers and sisters. I love the Nordic solidarity being shown here. >

We have underlined to all our future NATO partners, including Hungary and Turkey, that Finnish and Swedish security go together," he said.
A spokesperson for Sweden's foreign ministry declined to comment.
Of NATO's 30 members, only Turkey and Hungary are yet to ratify the Nordic countries' membership applications.
Presidential and parliamentary elections will be held in Turkey in May and many analysts believe that it will be hard to make progress before that.
But Haavisto said he still hoped Finland and Sweden would become NATO members in the next few months.
"I still see the NATO summit in Vilnius in July as an important milestone when I hope that both counties will be accepted as NATO members at the latest," Haavisto said.
Finland and Sweden had been hoping for a rapid accession process and were taken by surprise by Turkey's objections.
Turkey wants Sweden, in particular, to take a clearer stance against what it sees as terrorists, mainly Kurdish militants and a group it blames for a 2016 coup attempt in Turkey.
Sweden has said it takes Turkey's security concerns seriously and is implementing the three-way agreement signed in June last year, but Ankara says it is not doing enough.
That has led to speculation Finland - which shares a 1,300-km (810-mile) border with Russia - could proceed without Sweden.
But Haavisto said security assurances from the United States, Britain and other NATO members meant that Finland could be patient.
"We appreciate those security assurances very much even if we understand that it is not the same as the NATO Article 5, but it is very important for us," he said.
Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty, NATO's founding document, commits all members to mutual defence, stating that an attack against one is an attack against all. >

Sweeden said theybtake turkish securitt of need serious and did nothing.
Actually few days after there was pkk meeting to provoke turkey by hanging ersogan dolls and show it deat etc.
Sweeden still is a safehouse to terrorism operations and turkey doesnt to be brother in arms while sweeds supporting terrorism.
You must make empaty that terrorism in turkey caused more than 40k death, bombings and so on. Its not a topic that turkiye can show tolerance, a big no. >

Kudos to Finland for sticking with Sweden on the NATO bid. Turkey tried to split them and NATO but failed to do so >

Sveriges sak är vår! >

Erdogan discovers that there's such a thing as integrity.
He's probably very puzzled by this. Not a thing he often encounters in daily life. >

No dude, turks simply doesnt want sweedistan as safeheaven to terrorism to be a part of nato. Thats why turks are okay with finland but not sweeden.
There is other reason, so simple. >

Lol, you mean "people who criticize Erdogan" as terrorists. They sent over real terrorists, just not the journalists that did the heinous crime of criticizing dear leader. >

No dude, every terrorist is "peaceful activist" for you. 
Here we are in turkey, lost 40k lifes in the last 40k death. I dont think they were peacefull activists.. >

I was going to say the whole thing was starting to seem like he just wanted to drive division between Sweden and Finland >

He will never succeed in driving any kind of division between us. Finland and Sweden have had a special bond for a very long time. We will stand united! >

It's like a wholesome Stockholm syndrome kind of thing on a national scale hundreds of years in the making. >

That's just how countries work in general, especially in Europe. Like, we're talking about a continent that became so proficient in waging war against each other that they managed to colonize pretty much the entirety of the rest of the world while still constantly fighting each other, but nowadays (most of) Europe is pretty much the standard for international peace where former arch enemies have gone full buddy-buddy. >

Sweden and Finland have never been enemies. You're thinking of Sweden and Denmark >

I know, I was just making an example of how current relations between countries often makes no sense if you look at history (without doing a deep-dive obviously). >

Imagine the pressure that Erdogan is going to get from the rest of NATO until July. He'll get zero economic support, zero military sales and or/equipment transfers and basically be put in the diplomatic freezer. All of this doesn't help his party get prepared for the May elections.
And they'll be really cozy to his neighbours like Greece getting F35s and other stuff.
I don't think he really knows the pile of shit he just stepped into. >

Yeah he's chosen the wrong side.  He fucked up big time. >

These are the type of countries you probably want to involve in NATO. Sticking together trough this shitshow till the very end. >

Just goes to show that Finland (and Sweden) are NATO material. Just because Turkey offers to let Finland ascend, at the cost of a defacto veto for Sweden, Finland isn’t interested in helping itself at the cost of its neighbour. Good on ya, Finland. >

Finland don’t play that shit. Finland has more balls than people give them credit for. Good for them. >

I'm the first to poke fun at Finns but it's true, they're not to be messed with. >

Its nice to see two countries being so close, hope to see them in nato in july! >

Has Hungry given the green light and we’re only waiting on Turkey or all we still waiting for the two pricks in both offices to fold on the NATO bid? >

both pricks >

*sadOrbanNoises*
waiting for his turn to blackmail >

It wouldn't matter anyway if only Finland got in. Sweden would be protected by NATO borders all around. Fuck Erdoğan though. >

As a Finn, I wouldn't want to go to Nato without Sweden. They are our brothers and sisters. >

I wish my country (England/UK) would treat (and be treated by) it's neighbours like France with the same love and respect as the Finn's and Swede's, you guys are inspirational! >

Pretty plainly hoping that Turkey saves itself from incipient dictator and persistent economic catastrophe Erdogan in May. >

This comment is so far away from turkiye's reality.
Whoever in power in future, turkiyes problems with terrorism will still be going.
Turkiye only demans sweeden to stop being safehouse to the pkk terrorists.
It doesnt seems to change in sweeden so turks doesnt want to be brother in arms with sweeden, thats all. >


Turkiye only demans sweeden to stop being safehouse to the pkk terrorists.

Were that the case they would be requesting the extradition of terrorists and providing evidence of their crimes through the perfectly functional extradition framework in place. Sweden and Finland have no problems extraditing terrorists.
Curiously Erdogan seems more concerned with members of the political opposition and journalists. Unfortunately for him, due to how functioning democratic nations divide power they are unable to extradite innocent people to almost certainly face torture in a country with glaring problems with their democracy and justice system.
Turkey has been politely informed multiple times it's wasting time with this extortion attempt, because by design our politicians simply don't have the power to extradite anyone even if they wanted to. >

It’ll happen. They just have to find the correct carrot-and-stick formula for Erdogan. >

Finland might ask its sweedish brother to stop being safehouse to pkk terrorists. Also having empaty with turks, their terrorism problems causing chaos in the last 40 years would be a nice understanding between sweeden, turkiye and finland. >

In the words of Tenacious D “Thats fuckin’ teamwooork!” >

It is the desire of both Finland and Sweden, as well as all major NATO allies, that the two countries join at the same time. This is not set in stone, however. Finland is also having an election this spring, and the next administration might be OK with entering NATO before Sweden does. >

The rest of the NATO might not be OK with it though and while they have officially approved they could just politely tell Finland not to join until the issue with Turkey has been properly ironed out. >

The "issue" with Turkey is the same as with Hungary. Erdogan and Orban are in Putin's pocket. They are enemies from within for NATO. And we'd better get that straight or we won't be prepared to defend ourselves. >

You are so wrong. Turkiye and russia are like mortal enemies in the last 500 years and so on.
The only issue of turkey is that turkey has huge border with middle east. Syria, iraq and iran dull of shit and terrorism. Thisnterrorism caused more than 40k death many bombings and tons of other chaos but those terrorists are welcomed in sweeden and its a great safeheaven to them.
Whoever is in power of turkey, sweeden cant be brother in arms with turkey while being terrorism safehouse. >

Finland has direct border with Russia while Sweden doesn't. Also can Swedish police actually stop someone from burning Qur'an? >

No in Denmark and Sweden we have this thing called freedom of speech. It also includes burning the Quran. The only way it's really against the law, is if you don't clean up aka littering. Or if you create some kind of fire hazard. Turkey should just stop acting like a little child. >

I mean when you burn the Quran you're not really speaking.I have seen Swedish people get pissed on the internet because people in turkey burning our flag, saying "WELL THATS TOTALLY DIFFERENT".
What you're looking at is the right to protest.
I hate Paludan with a passion, not because of any religious reason as I am a non-religious Swede. But because he lives in Denmark, works in Denmark, yet he travels to Sweden for the simple reason to taunt Muslims. Only to try and prove that his theories of middle eastern people being violent savages is true, so that his racist "Pro-white" party can succeed in Denmark.
What he does has one function only and its to try and start uproars, but he doesn't want to do it in Denmark, so he goes to Sweden to do it instead.
And most people don't get mad at the fact he is burning the quran, but rather that the Swedish government pays a fuck ton of money to protect him every time he does it, so it looks more like the Swedish government are the ones protesting muslims.
The only good thing with this is the fact he pissed off Turkey so now we don't have to join NATO and pay 1 billion swedish kronor every fucking year for absolutely nothing. >


I mean when you burn the Quran you're not really speaking. [...] What you're looking at is the right to protest.  

Yes, freedom of expression.  

I have seen Swedish people get pissed on the internet because people in turkey burning our flag, saying "WELL THATS TOTALLY DIFFERENT".  

Where? I can't imagine that anyone other than maybe some small group of nationalist extremists would care at all, and I haven't seen anyone do so on this sub, r/europe or r/sweden either. >


Yes, freedom of expression.

Freedom of expression does not inherently protect burning of books. We use it to say that its protected as a "symbolic" way to protest, however its never mentioned in the actual law.
Freedom to protest however could be argued to protect the burning of books.
Believe it or not, what Paludan is doing is actually walking quite a fine line and it's pretty amazing he actually has managed to be able to do what he does considering all the rules that we have around Freedom of Expression and Freedom to protest.  

Where? I can't imagine that anyone other than maybe some small group of nationalist extremists would care at all, and I haven't seen anyone do so on this sub, r/europe or r/sweden either.

The internet exists outside of Reddit. >


The internet exists outside of Reddit.  

So where? Twitter or Youtube? They barely count as representative of anything anyone would actually care about. >

But /r/Sweden does? :D
Listen, I have seen people be pissed about them burning our flag.I have argued that it's their right.I have been argued against.
If its twitter, tiktok or youtube it doesn't matter.
Do you want to talk as to why this specific point is important to you?
Do you feel it "misrepresents sweden"? One of the most racist countries in Europe, being against burning a flag? 
A symbol of nationalism? Come now. >


Do you want to talk as to why this specific point is important to you?  

Because you're falsely making it sound like it's a widespread phenomena, while it's really just a tiny fringe minority who no one gives a fuck about.  

Do you feel it "misrepresents sweden"?  

Yes, I'd have thought I made that very clear already?  

One of the most racist countries in Europe  

Bullshit.  
Ah well, your claims are anecdotes and you can't even vaguely back it up, so I'm going to (based on my own experience, and general knowledge) assume you're exaggerating the issue. >

A story.
They are indeed anecdotes and were not said to be anything else.
I don't need to prove anything. 
The fact that Sverigedemokraterna got 20% of the votes and you sit here to claim we don't have nationalists and that they are "few" is actually insane. >

Since you're just making shit up and pretending I said things I never did now, I'm gonna just mute you and stop wasting time here. Have fun. >

I have a Finnish friend that just finished Turkey, he was very full ofc but said he isn't returning anytime soon over this. I hope a lot of people are finnished with Turkey until the dictator is out. >

Erdogan might be in power or not in the future. But turkish people still not wanting sweeden in nato while they are safeheaven to terrorism operations.
This russian threat and war to eu is quite new. On the other hand long before this, turkiye were fighting against russia in both libia, syria and even in azerbaijan over proxies. Where was west while turks fighting against russia? ( Where was Gondor when Westfold fell? Lol)
turkiye also facing with terrorism in the last 40 year. More than 40k death, tons of bombing and many other chaos.
Without making empaty to turks and understand their needs of security, why would turks accepts sweeden to be brother in arms with turkiye?
Do they even care whats happening in our southestern border at all? >

Ergoden is another autocrat xenophobe with a $900,000 salary. His bitching about Sweden grooming Kurd terrorists is a replay of USA confederates wanting their escaped slaves back. >

I think Sweden should help subsidize the Finnish military budget since they in effect have become a buffer state between Russia and Sweden. >

Sweden and Finland has a common war plan for war with Russia since 2018 iirc. Which allows both of us to focus on different parts of the defense of our two countries. >

Wasn't the book burning thing likely a Russian false flag operation to derail this? >

The guy has been burning the book for years. It just happen to get the attention of turkey now? >

I don't understand why both countries are so eager to join NATO. If it is the fear of Russia, then Turkey did the exact same mistake years ago, even begging the USA many, many times, for the same reason. Now the country is still paying its price. Sweden and Finland should turn back before it's too late. >

Bud, stay off truth social, it's rotting your brain. >

Hint: July is after the elections in Turkey.
A good guess to think things might change by July.
I believe Finland already suggested last week to let the talks pause for a while. >

I'm a Finn and I think this is definitely a wise choice. Personally I have no faith in Erdogan saying something else today or tomorrow anyway so it's better to just wait for his tantrum to end and join with our neighbors to the west. >

Is there any benefit for anyone from Finland not joining first?
Attacking Sweden without going through Finland isn't impossible, but it's a lot harder than the other way around. I could see why Finland may want Sweden to wait, but no reason why Sweden wouldn't tell Finland to go first. >

The real beneficiary is Finno-Swedish relations, as well as NATO as a whole. Going ahead on your own, as well as this whole game of division played by Erdogan, is antithetical to a defensive pact. >

I totally understand why Finland wouldn't say "sorry Sweden, I'm joining".
What I don't understand is why Sweden doesn't say "you go ahead, it's better for us both". >

Sweden obviously has no say over what Finland, a sovereign country decides to do. However I think most of us Swedes would be understanding if Finland decided to join on their own. They are in a more exposed position than Sweden geographically, and it would increase safety for Sweden as well by nearly surrounding us with NATO countries. However most are probably grateful that Finland will join together with Sweden when/if the time comes, as was always the plan.
We have a saying in Sweden going back to the WW2 days, which translates to "The Finnish cause is ours". Erdogan is trying to cause a divide among the Nordic countries to strengthen his bargaining power, but he's underestimating how close the countries are and how much we view each other as brothers and sisters (yes, even you Danes). Besides, even if Finland tried to join NATO on their own, it's very likely Erdogan would come up with some other nonsense reason for why they can't join since the core issue isn't really about Finland and Sweden in the first place. >

Are you sure about the Danes? It’s okay, this is a safe space. >

Only us the Danes are allowed to pick on Sweden, if anyone els picks on Sweden then they must be prepared for some "Bøllebank" >

Sweden is the soft squishy center of Nordics we all must protect. >

Thank you my Finnish brothers and sisters. I love the Nordic solidarity being shown here. >

We have underlined to all our future NATO partners, including Hungary and Turkey, that Finnish and Swedish security go together," he said.
A spokesperson for Sweden's foreign ministry declined to comment.
Of NATO's 30 members, only Turkey and Hungary are yet to ratify the Nordic countries' membership applications.
Presidential and parliamentary elections will be held in Turkey in May and many analysts believe that it will be hard to make progress before that.
But Haavisto said he still hoped Finland and Sweden would become NATO members in the next few months.
"I still see the NATO summit in Vilnius in July as an important milestone when I hope that both counties will be accepted as NATO members at the latest," Haavisto said.
Finland and Sweden had been hoping for a rapid accession process and were taken by surprise by Turkey's objections.
Turkey wants Sweden, in particular, to take a clearer stance against what it sees as terrorists, mainly Kurdish militants and a group it blames for a 2016 coup attempt in Turkey.
Sweden has said it takes Turkey's security concerns seriously and is implementing the three-way agreement signed in June last year, but Ankara says it is not doing enough.
That has led to speculation Finland - which shares a 1,300-km (810-mile) border with Russia - could proceed without Sweden.
But Haavisto said security assurances from the United States, Britain and other NATO members meant that Finland could be patient.
"We appreciate those security assurances very much even if we understand that it is not the same as the NATO Article 5, but it is very important for us," he said.
Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty, NATO's founding document, commits all members to mutual defence, stating that an attack against one is an attack against all. >

Sweeden said theybtake turkish securitt of need serious and did nothing.
Actually few days after there was pkk meeting to provoke turkey by hanging ersogan dolls and show it deat etc.
Sweeden still is a safehouse to terrorism operations and turkey doesnt to be brother in arms while sweeds supporting terrorism.
You must make empaty that terrorism in turkey caused more than 40k death, bombings and so on. Its not a topic that turkiye can show tolerance, a big no. >

Kudos to Finland for sticking with Sweden on the NATO bid. Turkey tried to split them and NATO but failed to do so >

Sveriges sak är vår! >

Erdogan discovers that there's such a thing as integrity.
He's probably very puzzled by this. Not a thing he often encounters in daily life. >

No dude, turks simply doesnt want sweedistan as safeheaven to terrorism to be a part of nato. Thats why turks are okay with finland but not sweeden.
There is other reason, so simple. >

Lol, you mean "people who criticize Erdogan" as terrorists. They sent over real terrorists, just not the journalists that did the heinous crime of criticizing dear leader. >

No dude, every terrorist is "peaceful activist" for you. 
Here we are in turkey, lost 40k lifes in the last 40k death. I dont think they were peacefull activists.. >

I was going to say the whole thing was starting to seem like he just wanted to drive division between Sweden and Finland >

He will never succeed in driving any kind of division between us. Finland and Sweden have had a special bond for a very long time. We will stand united!