The Turkish Parliament’s endorsement of Sweden’s NATO membership on Tuesday removed a major obstacle to the Nordic country’s entry (previously not aligned with the military alliance) and left Hungary as the final stumbling block to allowing it to join the Atlantic club. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán invited his Swedish counterpart Ulf Kristersson to Budapest to try to negotiate the ratification of the country’s accession, but Sweden has so far rejected the invitation.
The green light given on Tuesday by the Turkish Parliament by an overwhelming majority puts an end to 20 months of negotiations that tested the patience of Ankara’s Western allies, eager to form a united front against Moscow in the context of the invasion of Ukraine. .
Sweden celebrated yesterday that the Turkish Parliament had approved the entry of the Nordic country. But Swedish Foreign Minister Tobias Billström did not want to reveal whether the prime minister will now travel to Hungary to meet with Orbán, after the latter sent him a letter “to negotiate Sweden’s accession to NATO,” according to the Hungarian leader himself in X. The head of Swedish diplomacy made it clear that he sees “no reason to negotiate at this time” with Budapest on this issue, according to the TT agency.
The minister, who met last Monday in Brussels with his Hungarian counterpart, Péter Szijjártó, asked Hungary to ratify Sweden’s accession to the Atlantic Alliance. “We addressed, among other things, the issue of ratification. I received again the promise that they intend to continue with this and that the government fully supports Sweden becoming a member of NATO,” Billström said. “Naturally we hope that Hungary will ratify it as soon as possible,” he emphasized.
According to the Swedish agency TT, Hungary had previously requested that Swedish representatives come to Budapest, but Kristersson has always said that he already sees Orbán periodically at European Union summits. While Orbán says his government supports Sweden’s admission to the alliance, he says lawmakers from his party, the ruling Fidesz, are unconvinced because of what he called “blatant lies” by Swedish politicians about the condition of democracy. in Hungary.
In the absence of a signal from him and under pressure from his NATO partners, the nationalist leader took the initiative by sending the letter. In his letter, Orbán evokes the need to “build solid mutual trust” through a “more intense political dialogue.”
Sweden announced in May 2022, after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, its candidacy for NATO, at the same time as Finland, which became the organization’s 31st member in April. Hungary has certainly given its support in principle, but has been dragging its feet for months. Some experts saw it as a blackmail strategy by Viktor Orbán to obtain concessions from the EU, others as a sign of his proximity to Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish head of state Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The nationalist leader had promised not to be the last leader to approve him but, by waiting too long, the Turkish Parliament beat him to the punch.
To meet Ankara’s demands, Sweden reformed its constitution and adopted a new anti-terrorism law, and Turkey accused Sweden of leniency toward Kurdish militants who had taken refuge on its soil, some of whom were considered terrorists by Ankara. Sweden, Finland, Canada and the Netherlands also took steps to relax Turkey’s arms export policies.
In the Hungarian opposition, the Socialist Party (MSZP) called on Viktor Orbán to “put an end to this senseless farce, which considerably damages the image of Hungary”, demanding the convening of an extraordinary session of the Assembly to finally proceed to the vote. . On the part of the pro-Orbán media, we rebelled on Tuesday against a Sweden that “demands a blood pact without making any gesture in return,” according to an article in Mandiner magazine.
