Bulgaria’s National Assembly ratified, at two separate readings, the protocols for the accession of Finland and Sweden to NATO.

The voting comes after the NATO summit in Madrid in June when the allies invited the two countries to become NATO members and they signed the accession protocols. Before the vote, the MPs laid emphasis on the fact that the war in Ukraine, instead of weakening NATO and the democratic world, has brought about a strategic change that strengthens their security, and that the two countries’ accession to the alliance is not subject to any debate.

The parliamentary group of the the nationalist Vazrazhdane was the only one to have voted against.