In a letter to Foreign Minister Tobias Billström, the Hungarian Foreign Minister threatens that the Swedish NATO process is in danger.
In the letter, which has been partially posted on the Foreign Minister’s Facebook page, he criticizes what is said in Swedish schools about Hungary.
TV4 Nyheterna’s Elisabet Frerot analyzes the situation.
Why is the Hungarian government making this move now?
It is about an old TV program from 2019. It is probably not a coincidence that it was dug out of the archive right now when both the parliaments of Hungary and Turkey will soon gather and consider Sweden’s NATO application.
So far, Hungary has said that parliament’s approval is just a formality. But now Sweden’s attitude towards Hungary is once again highlighted as a major problem and strong words are used in their criticism of the Swedish government.
Sweden is thus singled out in particular, even though Hungary’s dismantling of the free judiciary has been a headache for the entire EU for several years. The criticism of Hungary that is expressed in the Swedish television program is shared by the majority of EU countries and the EU Court of Justice has given the green light that respect for the principles of the rule of law must in the future be a condition for receiving EU grants.
Hungary thus risks missing out on billions of dollars. Perhaps Orban has learned from Erdogan’s negotiating tactics and is taking the NATO process hostage to put pressure on the EU to pay the money.
How can it affect Sweden’s NATO application?
It is a worrying signal that the NATO process will not go as smoothly as the Swedish government had hoped after Erdogan promised to approve Sweden this summer. It is now not only about Turkey, the Hungarian parliament may also put sticks in the wheels.
With this letter, the Hungarian foreign minister prepares the ground, and creates arguments for the parliament to be able to mess up this autumn.
Why does Foreign Minister Tobias Billström not want to comment on the matter?
The Hungarian foreign minister’s wording says a lot about how Orban’s government views the media’s free role in a democracy. He assumes that the government controls every word that is said in a public service feature and describes it as the Swedish state conducting propaganda in the schools and portraying Hungary as an undemocratic country.
Should Billström go out and defend the content of the program, he would confirm that image. One of the principles of the rule of law that the EU and Sweden are trying to get Hungary to respect is precisely that the government should not interfere in what free media can publish.
Perhaps the government has also learned a lesson during the NATO negotiations with Turkey that it does not pay to fall for blackmail. Starting to waver on one’s basic principles in a negotiation only leads to further demands.