Summary: Hungary will vote on Monday on whether Sweden should become a member of NATO. Sweden’s chief of defense, Michael Bydén, states that they are ready and well prepared for membership. All 31 NATO countries must agree before a new member can be admitted to the organization. Hungary has previously been a strong critic of Sweden’s membership, but Prime Minister Orban has stated that he supports Swedish membership. Sweden applied for NATO membership in May 2022, after Russia went to full-scale war in Ukraine. The summary is made by an AI service from OpenAI. The content is quality assured by news’s journalists before publication. – We are ready and well prepared, says Sweden’s defense chief Michael Bydén to news. Today, Hungary’s Prime Minister, Viktor Orban, has announced that the country’s National Assembly will approve Sweden’s NATO application. – We have waited a long time for this, says Bydén. Which says there is a difference between being a partner country and a full ally. Among other things, there will be better access to information and communication, he says. The Nordic defense chiefs join together in the Vasaloppet on Monday. Norway’s Eirik Kristoffersen, Finland’s Timo Kivinen and Sweden’s Michael Bydén. Photo: Joakim Reigstad / news Together with his Finnish and Norwegian colleague, he will run the Vasaloppet today. The aim of the ski race is precisely to go together, according to the Norwegian defense chief. Together, they will also soon be in NATO. – It will be better for security for the Nordic region, but also for Norway, says Eirik Kristoffersen. The Finnish defense chief, for his part, says that it means a lot that Sweden becomes a member. Finland has been a member for one year, and it has opened doors, says Timo Kivinen. Everyone must say yes All 31 NATO countries must agree before a new member can be admitted to the organisation. It has almost been two years since Sweden announced that it was applying for membership. Hungary has been one of the strongest critics of Swedish membership in the defense alliance. The governing party Fidesz has, among other things, accused Sweden of lying about the state of Hungarian democracy. But Viktor Orban said at the end of January that he supports Swedish membership. – It is good news that our dispute with Sweden will soon be over, Orban said when the date for the vote was set. The opposition in Hungary also believes in a yes from Sweden. Agnes Vaidai in the Democratic Coalition tells Sveriges Radio that she cannot see any other scenario than that Sweden’s NATO application gets the green light on Monday afternoon. Several countries believe that Swedish membership is important for the alliance. Among others, the United States emphasized this when American senators visited Hungary in mid-February. Defense agreement between Sweden and Hungary There have been several talks between the two countries recently. And on Friday they signed a military agreement. Then the two countries’ prime ministers met in Budapest. At a joint press conference, it was announced that Hungary is buying four more Jas 39 Gripen aircraft from Sweden. Sweden and Hungary agreed on a military agreement on Friday. Photo: Reuters The two countries are also extending an agreement on support for the planes for another ten years. After Russia went to full-scale war in Ukraine in February 2022, security policy changed in Europe, and it became relevant for Sweden and Finland to become NATO members. And on 18 May 2022, Sweden applied for NATO membership. 200 years of non-alignment were over. Turkey finally said yes. There were two countries that did not want to admit Sweden as a NATO country when they applied. It was Turkey and Hungary. Turkey was critical for a long time, among other things, because they believed that Sweden harbored “PKK terrorists”, and because there have been several Koran burnings in Sweden. In January, the Turkish National Assembly approved Sweden’s NATO application. Must be physically sent to the US If the parliament votes yes, as they are likely to do, the minutes of the decision will be sent to Hungary’s interim president László Kövér. Then the protocol must be sent by plane to Washington to the US State Department. For Finland, this took three days, writes SVT.
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Hungary decides Sweden’s NATO fate – news Urix – Foreign news and documentaries
