The Hungarian opposition will probably demand an extraordinary session of parliament to ratify Sweden’s NATO membership, but their bid may fail, parliament speaker Laszlo Kover said on Thursday.
On January 24, the Turkish Parliament ratified Sweden’s request for membership in NATO, making this country’s entry into the alliance even closer, REL writes, KosovaPress transmits.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is now expected to sign the Swedish legislation within days.
This means that Hungary will be the only NATO member that will have to approve Sweden’s request in order to finalize the process.
Kover added, on his website, that he “does not feel any particular urgency” and “there is no extraordinary situation” regarding Sweden’s admission to NATO.
Hungary has accused Sweden of having a hostile approach.
In March of last year, the Hungarian Government spokesman, Zoltan Kovacs, accused the officials in Sweden of standing on the throne of moral superiority.
This is after Stockholm has previously accused the Hungarian Government of going against the democratic principles of the EU.
However, there has been progress in recent days.
The Hungarian Prime Minister, Viktor Orban, said on Tuesday that he invited his Swedish counterpart to Budapest to discuss Sweden’s membership in NATO.
The Secretary General of NATO, Jens Stoltenberg, has welcomed the news from Turkey, saying that he expects Hungary to end the procedures as soon as possible.
Sweden, along with Finland, have ended several decades of neutrality in 2022, and have decided to join NATO, after the start of Russia’s war in Ukraine.
While Finland has been admitted, Sweden has been blocked by Turkey, which has had some disagreements over what it considers Stockholm’s support for Kurdish separatists, citing members of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
Turkey, along with the United States and the European Union, consider the PKK a terrorist organization.
