Sweden’s Foreign Minister Tobias Billstrom mentioned Stockholm hopes that Hungary will quickly approve its NATO membership bid.
Hungary stays the final holdout to ratify the Nordic nation’s bid to hitch the navy alliance, launched after the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
“It is important to see Hungary finalizing the ratification process with the voting of the Hungarian parliament being necessary to achieve this,” Billstrom informed a news convention on Wednesday.
“The Hungarian parliament opens on the Feb. 26, in just a couple of weeks time, and we expect this to come through at that moment,” Billstrom added.
The Swedish minister reiterated there can be no negotiations on the ratification regardless of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban inviting his Swedish counterpart Ulf Kristersson to “negotiate” Sweden’s accession.
“There is nothing to negotiate, if there is a visit, it’s not going to be a negotiation, that has been made very clear by my prime minister,” the Swedish minister added.
Although it helps Stockholm in precept, Budapest extended the method by asking Sweden to cease “vilifying” the Hungarian authorities.
After Russia invaded Ukraine, Sweden introduced its utility to hitch NATO in May 2022, similtaneously Finland, which grew to become the group’s thirty first member in April 2023.
Last month, Türkiye’s Parliament handed a invoice backing Sweden’s NATO accession bid and cleared a final main hurdle for the Nordic nation to hitch the Western bloc after 20 months of delays that strained the ties between Ankara and a few Western allies.
Source: www.dailysabah.com