The Hungarian parliament has voted yes to Finland’s NATO application. Thus, Finland has taken another step towards becoming a full member of the defense alliance. When it is Sweden’s turn is still unclear. The decision was made on Monday evening. A large majority, 182 members, voted to ratify the application and six voted against. The Hungarian Parliament consists of 199 members. The vote was mainly a formality. The ruling party Fidesz, which has a majority in parliament, already signaled earlier that there will be a unanimous yes from the party. Five speeches were heard during the debate. Three of them were held by opposition parties and two by Fidesz. The opposition accuses the ruling party of delaying the ratification. Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin thanked on Twitter for the “clear decision”. “Finland’s and Sweden’s NATO membership strengthens the security of the entire alliance. It is in everyone’s interest that Sweden is also a member of NATO before the summit in Vilnius,” writes Marin. Yes to Sweden “in the near future” The Hungarian parliament has chosen to separate the approval of Sweden’s and Finland’s NATO membership. Therefore, only Finland’s application was on the table when the Hungarian parliament voted. The speaker of the parliament, László Kövér, said last week that Hungary supports the Swedish NATO application and that the ratification will take place “in the near future”, according to the news portal Telex. Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson (M) tried to clarify the matter when he met his Hungarian colleague Viktor Orbán in Brussels on Thursday – but he did not receive an explanation as to why Hungary chose to wait with Sweden. One reason why Hungary’s ratification took so long is that the country’s politicians say they are tired of the Nordic countries’ pointers. – You know, when Finnish and Swedish politicians question the democracy in our political system, it is unacceptable, said Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto in an interview with the news agency AP this weekend. Only Turkey left Now 29 out of 30 member countries in NATO have ratified Finland’s membership. The fact that Hungary now hastened with Finland may be due to the fact that Turkey is ready to approve Finland. It is said that the Turkish decision may come in the first week of April, and then Hungary does not want to be the country that prevents Finland from becoming a NATO member. Sweden and Finland applied in May 2022 at the same time to join NATO and were jointly invited by all 30 NATO countries this summer. Sweden and Finland have had the ambition to go hand in hand through the entire ratification process. But on March 17, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced that they are ready to approve Finland, but not Sweden.
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Hungary approves Finland’s NATO application
