Sweden has cleared the final hurdle to become a NATO member in another historic expansion motivated by the Russian threat, after the Finnish one. The Hungarian Parliament on Monday ratified the Nordic country’s membership of the Atlantic Alliance, after delaying it for 19 months. Hungary, governed by the ultra-conservative Viktor Orbán, was the last Alliance 31 partner awaiting approval.
The ratification paves the way for Stockholm – abandoning two centuries of neutrality and being a non-aligned country – to become NATO’s 32nd member. The Alliance has been redrawing its borders following the April 2023 entry of Finland, and now Sweden, which could come into force this week. Stockholm’s membership could have major geopolitical consequences just as Russia’s war against Ukraine enters its third year and amid concerns that the Kremlin will test the allies’ mutual security commitment. Member 32 gives the Alliance control of almost the entire Baltic Sea (with the exception of the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad), which can facilitate the transit of troops and equipment from Norwegian North Sea ports, as well as providing the island of Gotland, crucial for the defense of the Baltics.
Helsinki and Stockholm applied to join the Atlantic Alliance shortly after Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has always railed against the expansion of the military organization to the east and hid behind the hypothetical entry of Kiev, has achieved the opposite result: a broader and closer NATO. Only with the entry of Finland and its 1,300 kilometers of border with Russia, the Alliance has already doubled the border with the Eurasian giant.
“Sweden’s membership will make us all stronger and safer,” NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said on social media. Sweden’s entry coincides with a key and complicated moment for the Alliance, which is dealing with the uncertainty of Donald Trump’s possible return to the White House. The former US president launched broadsides against countries that invest little in defense, compromising the mutual security pact.
Pitfalls in membership
Sweden’s path to NATO has been fraught with pitfalls. First, Turkey was the ally country that delayed ratification in exchange for Stockholm making some reforms to its anti-terrorism law and ended up approving membership in Parliament after months of negotiations and just days before the US agreed to sell F-16 fighters to Turkey. Ankara. . Turkey approved membership on January 23. The delay of Hungary, which had ensured that it would not be the last to ratify it, was even more surprising and a real headache for Sweden and the other allies, to whom it caused deep distress. Last Friday, Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson traveled to Budapest at Orbán’s request and both governments concluded a deal to purchase four Swedish-made Gripen fighter jets.
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The Hungarian leader asked the House on Monday for its support for Sweden’s membership after considering the “disputes” between the two countries resolved. Orbán, who maintains relations with Putin’s Russia, had argued over the last year that Swedish criticism of the rule of law – for which the EU keeps 21 billion euros in funding frozen – was an offense to Hungarian leaders . In his speech to Parliament, the Prime Minister described calls by states to keep their word as “unsolicited safeguards” and “disrespectful interventions”. This Monday, just over a month after ratification by Turkey, the ruling Fidesz party, which a few weeks ago had boycotted a vote on the same issue, said yes to enlargement. The votes in favor were 188 and six against.
Stockholm, amid warnings about the Russian threat, had intensified its diplomatic offensive in recent weeks. After the vote, Kristersson celebrated this “historic” day. “We are ready to assume our responsibilities in NATO,” underlined the Swedish Prime Minister. For the Scandinavian country, which in recent weeks has asked citizens to be “mentally prepared” for war, joining the Alliance is transcendental. Sweden abandons the neutrality of two centuries and brings to NATO a technologically very sophisticated army (and assimilated to the standards of military organisation), a strategic position and a very powerful defense industry (it is one of the largest arms exporters per capita in world) world).
A new president to resolve the political scandal
The Hungarian Parliament also approved the nomination of Tamás Sulyok as president of the republic. The Orbán government hopes to resolve, with a rapid and forceful response, one of the biggest crises faced during his mandate. On February 10, the president, Katalin Novák, and the former justice minister, deputy and frontrunner for the European elections, Judit Varga, presented their resignations for pardoning those who had hidden a pedophile. Tens of thousands of people took to the streets of Budapest on February 17, a demonstration that was followed by other protests in recent days.
Sulyok, nominated and elected by Orbán’s party, has been president of the Constitutional Court since 2016, where according to the independent Hungarian press he has habitually adopted a position aligned with that of Fidesz. “We believe that Tamás Sulyok’s experience, expertise in constitutional and legal issues, knowledge of international law and an adequate professional background made him the most suitable candidate,” Orbán said of him in his weekly public radio interview last Friday . In an interview in 2021, Sulyok stated: “I have not been interested in politics in my life.”
The new head of state will take office in eight days, on March 5. Until then, the President of the Parliament, László Kövér, will assume the functions and powers of the President of the Republic. Máté Kocsis, leader of the Fidesz parliamentary group, announced last week that MEP Tamás Deutsch will head his party’s list in the European Parliament to replace Varga.
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