Hungary’s new condition for agreeing to Sweden’s membership in the NATO military alliance

According to the report of the international group Tasnim news agency quoting According to the newspaper “Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung”, Hungary is currently the only NATO member state that has not approved Sweden’s accession to the NATO military alliance. Now the Hungarian parliamentary factions have announced the conditions for the approval of this plan.

The Hungarian government coalition does not want Sweden to join NATO until Swedish Prime Minister Olaf Kristerson, Viktor Orbán, to meet his Hungarian counterpart in Budapest, to approve. The parliamentary faction of Orban’s ruling right-wing populist party (Fidesz) announced the news to Hungarian TV channel ATV on Friday, as it reported online. This government coalition also includes the Christian Democratic Party of Hungary (KNDP).

Hungary is the only one of the 31 NATO member states that has not yet ratified Sweden’s accession. Hungary is delaying it because the right-wing populist government has said it feels insulted by Sweden’s criticism of the country’s rule of law situation.

Hungary’s left-liberal opposition has called for a special session of parliament to ratify Sweden’s accession to NATO, which is now scheduled for February 5. However, The state party Fidesz and the KDNP said on Friday that their MPs would not attend, but Swedish parliament speaker Laszlo Kovar, a Fidesz politician, had to approve the meeting because there were enough opposition votes. However, the opposition has no influence on the content of the agenda as Fidesz votes are needed to determine it. The main session of the parliament begins on February 26.

In light of Russia’s war against Ukraine, Sweden applied for NATO membership in May 2022 along with Finland. Finland was accepted as the 31st member of this alliance at the beginning of April last year.

However, the pressure on Hungary to approve Sweden’s plan to join NATO, after agreeing to this The country has stepped up to help Ukraine. Budapest agreed yesterday to send new aid to Ukraine after weeks of resistance.

Pressure on Budapest to speed up Sweden’s accession to NATO increased after Top US lawmakers said they wanted Hungary to immediately approve Sweden’s accession. If the necessary measures are not taken, this country is in danger of permanent damage to its relations with Washington.

However, Hungary has not openly opposed Sweden’s accession to NATO. But he has postponed the decision many times.

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