The Hungarian parliament finally sealed the fact that non-aligned Sweden would become a member of the military alliance. The application period was humiliating for Sweden, says Nordic correspondent Pirjo Auvinen.
Pirjo Auvinen, Nordic correspondent
STOCKHOLM Ä„ntligen! Finally! An exclamation is always heard in Stockholm as soon as the name of the new Nobel laureate in literature is announced for the first time.
Ä„ntligen! The Swedes could very well say that today as well, when the Hungarian parliament finally and for the last time confirmed Sweden’s NATO membership.
Sweden’s path from stable non-alignment to a member of the military alliance has been fast, but rocky.
For the 28 NATO countries, Finland and Sweden were more than welcome new members. However, Turkey and Hungary realized that they can also come up with their own conditions alongside the standard NATO entry requirements. Sweden has been trying to tackle them for the second year now.
The last show was seen on Friday in Budapest. Hungary is ruled by the prime minister of the ruling party Victor Orbán’s I think the Swedish Prime Minister should visit Budapest before discussing the membership issue in the Hungarian Parliament.
First the Prime Minister of Sweden Ulf Kristersson announced that he would come right after that, when the NATO thing is clear.
However, Kristersson had to reverse his decision, and so on Friday the two prime ministers were seen side by side on Budapest’s Castle Hill, who assured that despite their differences, there are also things in common experiences. On Friday, the pride of Sweden, the SAAB Gripen fighters, which Hungary has rented until now, became their symbol. Now Hungary announced that it will buy four Gripens in addition to the 14 leased planes.
But the differences in vision do not disappear with the Gripens. Kristersson, Orban and Finland Petteri Orpo are the leaders of the fraternal parties of the confederates, who got into bad fights at the end of the last decade.
Kristersson, Orpo and 10 other party leaders demand that Orbán’s party members must be separated from the coalition group of the EU Parliament, or EPP. According to critics, Hungary led by Orbán does not follow the principles of the rule of law and restricts freedom of speech as well as the activities of civil society and universities.
“Orbán organized a self-indulgent displayâ€
On Saturday, the opposition party Democratic Coalition held its meeting in the center of Budapest. The number one topic of the meeting was not Sweden’s NATO membership, which the party strongly supports, but the pedophilia scandal shaking Hungary’s domestic politics. As a result, the President Katalin Novák has already had to resign.
Vice chairman Agnes Vadai doesn’t mince his words when listing the reasons why Orban pushed Kristersson to Budapest.
– If we want to maintain good relations with our allies in NATO, I think the differences cannot be based on blackmail.
I think Friday’s meeting was all about the show. Orbán wanted to cover the papers, and here we are talking about him too, because he is finally ready to ratify Sweden’s accession.
Vadai describes that since Orbán’s party, Fidesz, has a majority in the parliament, everything in Hungary is now happening according to his will.
– So his personal vanity and sometimes even his narcissism is a problem. In my opinion, it is a huge danger to the security of Hungary and also to NATO, if the prime minister believes that his personal feelings are more important than the security of his homeland. And that’s what it’s about now.
– His personal vanity was more important to him than Hungary’s security, Vadai estimated.
Swedes’ self-image in turmoil
But let’s go back to Sweden.
NATO membership has not been an easy solution for all Swedish politicians, especially not for the largest of the parties, the Social Democrats.
On Thursday, we interviewed Sweden’s former foreign minister and EU commissioner Margot Wallström About the environmental destruction in Ukraine, but as has been inevitable in recent days, the talk also turned to NATO membership. Wallström said frankly that his head turned when he listened to the president Sauli Niinistön arguments for Finland’s NATO membership.
NATO membership is also not easy for Swedes’ own image of Sweden. Non-alignment combined with more than 200 years of peace has made Sweden bigger than its size, not very special.
Now you should get used to being like any other NATO country, and even then the smallest end of the alliance.