Hungarian Parliament – illustrative photo.
Budapest – The Hungarian Parliament will vote on the ratification of Finland's entry into NATO on March 27. Hungary's ruling Fidesz party, which controls parliament, confirmed it would unanimously support the move. Prime Minister Viktor Orbán's party will decide on the accession of Sweden, which submitted an application to the alliance together with Finland last year, the chairman of the Fidesz parliamentary faction, Máté Kocsis, informed on Facebook without further details. Fidesz has over two-thirds of the seats in the Hungarian parliament.
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Hungary and Turkey are the last NATO member countries that have not yet ratified the accession of Finland and Sweden to the alliance. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan assured his Finnish counterpart Sauli Niinistö today that Turkey will start ratifying Finland's application to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and expressed hope that lawmakers will approve the Nordic country's entry before Turkey's presidential and parliamentary elections in May. Sweden will also have to wait for the start of ratification in the Turkish parliament.
In the Hungarian parliament, the debate on the ratification of the entry of Sweden and Finland into NATO began on March 1. “I will propose a vote in the parliament on March 27 and we will unanimously vote in favor,” Kocsis said today regarding Finland's accession to NATO. “On the issue of Sweden, the parliamentary group will decide later,” he added.
Finland and Sweden submitted an application to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization together last year in response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which changed the long-term attitudes of the local governments and people on the question of membership in NATO.
While Ankara has been reluctant to approve their request due to the alleged lack of combating what it considers terrorist groups, Hungarian Prime Minister Orbán recently called on his MPs to approve the entry of Sweden and Finland into NATO, but at the same time accused both countries from spreading “outright lies” about the health of democracy and the rule of law in Hungary. Erdogan and Orbán met in Ankara on Thursday, Reuters reminds.
