Hungarian parliament ratifies Sweden’s NATO membership application
The Hungarian parliament ratified Sweden’s application for NATO membership, removing the last obstacle on the country’s path to membership.
This was reported by Censor.NET with reference to European Pravda.
188 members of the Hungarian parliament voted in favour of ratifying the protocol on Sweden's accession to NATO, while six were against.
Formally, the ratification process will be completed after the ratification protocol is signed by the Hungarian president and published in the official gazette. This is expected to happen within the next week.
Hungary, as you know, was the last NATO member state not to approve Sweden's accession to the Alliance.
For a long time, Budapest has been claiming that it supports Sweden's accession and will not be the "last" to approve it. In practice, however, ratification in the Hungarian parliament took place later than even in Turkey, which until recently had been actively criticising Sweden for its insufficient "fight against terrorism".
Sweden's accession to NATO
Sweden and Finland applied to join the Alliance a year and a half ago. Helsinki joined NATO in June 2023, and Sweden's application was ratified by all NATO countries except Hungary.
On 23 January, the Turkish parliament ratified Sweden's application to join NATO.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban called on his own parliament to take a similar step.
In early February, MPs from Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban's party boycotted a parliamentary session on Sweden's accession to NATO.
