One day after Turkey announced it was ready to ratify Sweden’s accession to NATO, Hungary, signalled on Tuesday that it is also willing to approve Stockholm’s bid for membership in the military alliance.
“Our position is clear: the government supports Stockholm’s accession to the Atlantic Alliance…Completing the ratification process is now just a technical matter”, declared Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto on his Facebook account before leaving for the NATO summit in Vilnius, Lithuania.
Hungary’s parliament wrapped up its extraordinary summer session on Friday but could reconvene in the next few days to vote.
Last week, nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who is close to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, expressed his “support” for Sweden’s application, promising “no prevarication” in the event of a change in Ankara’s position.
Turkey agreed on Monday to transmit Sweden’s accession protocol to the Turkish Parliament “as soon as possible”, a move welcomed by NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg on the eve of the Vilnius summit.
The Hungarian government justified its own delay in approving Sweden’s bid by repeatedly denouncing Stockholm’s policy of “denigration”, accusing it of criticising Budapest for failing to uphold the rule of law and “using its political influence” in Brussels “to harm Hungarian interests”.
In the case of Finland’s NATO accession, Hungary was also slow in giving the green light, waiting until just after Ankara approved the bid at the end of March.
Sweden and Finland announced their application to join NATO in May 2022, in the wake of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
