Hungary and Türkiye are the only North Atlantic Organization (NATO) countries whose parliaments have not yet ratified Sweden's application for membership.
“Today I sent a letter to Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson inviting him to visit Hungary to negotiate joining the alliance,” Orban wrote on his X page (formerly Twitter).
Last Monday, Hungarian Chancellor Peter Szijjártó met with his Swedish counterpart Tobias Billström in Brussels, where a meeting of foreign policy heads of EU countries took place.
During the meeting, the main topic of bilateral discussion was the Kingdom's accession to the alliance and Hungary's position in this regard.
On January 18, the head of the Hungarian Prime Minister's Office, Gergely Gulyas, reported in a conversation with journalists that Sweden was not taking the necessary steps to join NATO and was behaving as if it was not interested in it at all.
He pointed out that under such conditions it would be difficult for the Hungarian parliament to ratify the agreement on the kingdom's inclusion in the alliance.
Hungary submitted a bill to ratify the agreement on Sweden's accession to the military bloc to parliament in the summer of 2022, but it was shelved by MPs due to hostile statements from politicians towards the Magyar country.
The document has now been discussed in the committees, but the date of its vote has not yet been set, but it is officially included in the program of the spring session, which begins in February.
According to analysts, much will depend on the position of Türkiye, with which Hungary maintains contacts on this issue.
On March 27, 2023, the Hungarian Parliament approved Finland's accession to NATO, but postponed consideration of the Swedish issue.
The two Scandinavian countries submitted their applications to the North Atlantic Alliance on May 18, 2022, saying that events in Ukraine prompted them to take this step.
mem/amp