BUDAPEST, January 25. /TASS/. The Hungarian parliament will not rush to approve Sweden's bid to join NATO as the issue is not urgent, Parliament Speaker Laszlo Kover said in an interview with the news website Index.
When asked if the parliament will convene for an urgent session, he said: "I have no doubt that one of the opposition parties, which have not always been in line with Hungarian interests, will call for such a meeting, but this will likely fail."
"I do not feel any particular urgency. I do not think there is an extraordinary situation," he said.
On January 23, the Turkish parliament approved Sweden's accession to NATO, leaving Hungary as the only country in the alliance whose parliament has yet to vote on the Swedish bid. The Hungarian Parliament’s press service told TASS that the date of a meeting on the issue, as well as the entire agenda for the spring session that begins in mid-February, is to be determined by a legislature’s committee under Kover’s chairmanship.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban on January 23 extended an invitation to his Swedish counterpart Ulf Kristersson for talks on the kingdom's accession to NATO. Stockholm responded there was no need for it, but the two countries did have things to discuss. The next day, Orban said following a telephone conversation with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg that the Hungarian government supported Sweden's accession to the alliance and urged the parliament to approve the bid "at its earliest convenience."
The Hungarian cabinet submitted to parliament a bill to approve Sweden's membership in NATO back in the summer of 2022, but lawmakers didn’t act on it due to unfriendly statements of Swedish politicians about Hungary. The bill was discussed in the legislature’s committees and was formally included in the parliament's agenda in 2023.
In recent months, Budapest has been in close contact on this issue with Ankara, which has been pushing Stockholm to take tougher measures against Kurdish separatists in Sweden.
On March 27, 2023, Hungary’s parliament greenlighted Finland’s accession to NATO but postponed the consideration of Sweden’s bid. Both Nordic countries applied for NATO membership on May 18, 2022, saying that the move had been prompted by developments in Ukraine.