After months of stalling, the Hungarian parliament will discuss the support of the Swedish and Finnish NATO accession applications on Wednesday.
On 1 March, the Hungarian parliament will start discussing Budapest’s support to Sweden and Finland’s application to NATO, as confirmed to EURACTIV’s partner Telex by centrist Momentum MP Dávid Bedő.
For Sweden and Finland’s NATO application to be approved, support from all 30 members of the Alliance is required. While only Hungary and Turkey’s signatures are still missing, Hungary is expected to hold a final vote on the issue in the following week.
Centrist Hungarian MP Dávid Bedő told EURACTIV’s partner Telex that the Hungarian parliament, the last EU member state parliament to discuss NATO ratification for both countries, will first discuss the budget, then the Swedish and finally the Finnish accession.
Hungary’s Foreign Ministry submitted the proposals to parliament in mid-July, and in September, in response to Telex‘s question, it was announced that the issue would “with a good chance” be put on the agenda in autumn.
This did not happen for several reasons, including parliament having to pass urgent legislative proposals necessary to obtain the EU recovery funds and the fact that the Hungarian government could allegedly not “urge parliament”.
Orban’s willingness to approve the Swedish-Finnish application has been repeatedly questioned, namely by socialist Hungarian opposition MP Agnes Vadai.
“Both Putin and Erdogan have an interest in this. There are rumours that Orbán wants to please Putin. Especially when it comes to Finland, as there will be a long NATO border. Then he also does not want to leave Erdogan alone,” she told the Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet earlier this month.
Despite Orban’s apparent willingness to approve Sweden and Finland’s applications, Vadai said she would not necessarily trust it.
“I am not Viktor Orbán, and I don’t think like Viktor Orbán, which I am happy about. He is ready to change his mind at any time. Either for political reasons or to do someone a favour. But I hope he doesn’t,” she said.
(Charles Szumski, Telex with EURACTIV.com)
Source: euractiv.com
