The Croatian government on Thursday sent to the Parliament a motion to ratify protocols concerning Finland's and Sweden's membership in the Nato alliance, state news agency Hina said, without clarifying when the MPs are expected to vote to formally give Croatia's approval for their bids.

The accession of Sweden and Finland will significantly contribute to “the strength of the alliance and Europe’s security in times of the biggest security crisis in the last few decades,” Hina cited an unsigned statement from the Croatian foreign ministry from earlier this week.

The initial accession protocols were already signed on Croatia’s behalf by its permanent representative to Nato, Mario Nobilo.

This means that Sweden and Finland can now attend Nato meetings and have greater access to Nato’s shared intelligence data. However, they will not be covered by Nato’s Article 5 collective defense clause until lawmakers from all 30 Nato countries green-light their bids. This process is expected to take about 12 months.

“This is truly a historic moment,” Nato Secretary-General, Jens Stoltenberg, said earlier week. “With 32 nations around the table, we will be even stronger. And our people will be even safer, as we face the biggest security crisis in decades.”

Although Croatia’s government has expressed support for the enlargement of the alliance, Croatia’s President, Zoran Milanovic, took the opposite stance. Espousing the view that Nato is entirely controlled by the United States, Milanovic vehemently railed in the local media for Croatian MPs to vote against the ratification in order to force the US to change the election law in neighboring Bosnia and Herzegovina to the benefit of Bosnian Croats.

Milanovic, who was blacklisted by the Ukrainian Myrotvorets database in January for “spreading Russian propaganda.”

“He said that Ukraine does not belong in Nato and that the European Union triggered a coup in Ukraine in 2014 when the pro-Russian president Viktor Yanukovych was ousted,” Croatian state agency Hina explained at the time. Last month, Milanovic described the EU’s decision to give membership candidacy to Ukraine and Moldova over Bosnia and Herzegovina as hypocritical and even called it “sadistic.”