BUDAPEST, August 1./TASS/. Austria, Ireland and Switzerland are unlikely to abandon their policy of neutrality and seek to join NATO the way Finland and Sweden did, Endre Simo, president of the Hungarian Community for Peace, said in comments to TASS on reports about growing sentiment in favor of NATO membership in these three neutral countries.
In particular, as the Magyar Nemzet newspaper reported, John O'Sullivan, President of the Danube Institute in Budapest, argued that against the backdrop of the armed conflict in Ukraine, neutrality is no longer as attractive and fashionable in Europe as it used to be. Speaking at the end of July together with representatives of the Hungarian government at Free University in the Romanian town of Baile-Tusnad (Harghita County), he said that Finland and Sweden were not the only ones abandoning neutrality. According to him, voices in favor of NATO membership are getting increasingly louder, in Austria, Ireland and Switzerland.
There are certain political forces in each of these three countries who "are advocating the abandonment of neutrality and the joining of their countries to NATO," Simo said. "In their pursuit, they encounter not only social resistance, but also resistance from circles of their own elite who insist on neutrality," he added.
"I don't think it is likely that Austria and Switzerland would renounce their constitutional neutrality. Even less so, since this would have to be decided in a referendum, and the vast majority of people are supporters of neutrality," the president of the Hungarian Community for Peace said.
"Although Ireland is not legally neutral, de facto it pursues an active neutral policy against all participation in wars. NATO's primary goal is to integrate Sweden, not Ireland. But even Sweden's involvement runs into Turkey's resistance in circumstances where Qurans are burned weekly in the Scandinavian country," the political analyst said.
He believes these countries will better be able to ensure their security if they stay neutral than if they join a military-political alliance. "In my opinion, the authorities of these countries can meet the objective interests of their nations if they realize that it is not Russia that threatens their peace and sovereignty, but the military bloc they want to join," Simo summed up.