The Hungarian parliament will vote in March on the admission of Finland and Sweden to NATO

Hungarian legislators will vote in early March on the candidacies of Finland and Sweden to join NATO. This stems from the parliamentary agenda for the near future published on February 22 in Budapest.The general debate on the candidatures of the two countries will take place next week, AFP reported on Twitter . Voting on the candidacies of Finland and Sweden will take place separately for each of these states during the period from March 6 to 9.
Turkey and Hungary are the only NATO members that have not yet ratified the decision to accept two new NATO candidates, according to applications received from Helsinki and Stockholm. The consent of NATO’s 30 member states is required for the admission of new candidates for membership in the Alliance. As noted by AFP, signals have been received from Budapest that Hungary is ready to ratify both demands.
The deadline for the ratification vote has been pushed back several times. Earlier, Hungarian Prime Minister’s Chief of Staff Viktor Orban said that the first thing Hungary should do is pass anti-corruption legislation, and only after that it can deal with NATO issues.
The Hungarian opposition accused Orbán’s ruling party of delaying the vote. Orban pledged to maintain ties with Moscow despite the Russian military invasion of Ukraine.
Last month, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan hinted that Ankara might accept Finland’s NATO membership, while refusing Sweden’s. Relations between Turkey and Sweden have deteriorated considerably in recent months. Ankara has accused Stockholm of not wanting to respect the agreements on the conditions on which Turkey agreed last year to support Sweden’s entry into NATO. Erdogan focused on demanding that Stockholm extradite several dozen Kurdish activists that Turkey suspects of terrorism.
Finland and Sweden applied for NATO membership at the same time last May, shortly after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The two neighboring countries, long neutral, have agreed to coordinate their efforts to join NATO.