NATO | According to the Hungarian opposition, the parliament will begin to consider the ratification of NATO applications next week

Budapest

Finland and the ratification of Sweden’s NATO applications is on the spring agenda of the Hungarian Parliament, which will start its spring session next week.

The matter is confirmed to Helsingin Sanomat by a member of parliament from the opposition Momentum party Márton Tompos. About that told first News Finn.

The Parliament proceeds in such a way that it first holds a debate, after which the ratification is discussed in the parliamentary committees.

Hungarian media estimated on Tuesday that the debate would take place in the parliament next week, Wednesday, March 1, and the vote would take place a week later.

Tomposi according to the report, ratification was also on the agenda of the parliament in the autumn session, but the speaker of the parliament never set a date for the debate, so the ratification did not proceed.

Tompos represents an opposition party that practically has no power in the Hungarian parliament. For example, on Monday of this week, the opposition tried to stir up a discussion about the battery factory under construction in Hungary, but the main government party Fidesz did not even come to the session, which ended in a short one.

in Hungary there are several theories as to why the ruling party Fidesz has fiddled with ratification.

One explanation given by Fidesz itself is that the parliament has been really busy, thanks to the EU.

The EU has demanded several law changes and reforms in return for not cutting funding from the EU.

Most of those interviewed by HS consider the appeal to urgency to be nonsense, since Fidesz has a majority in the parliament. If it wants to, it gets laws through quickly.

Tompos has also heard an explanation from the government that ratification is such an important issue that a public hearing should be organized and citizens’ opinions should be collected.

General the estimate in Hungary is that the Prime Minister of Hungary Viktor Orbán use ratification as a pawn, useful specifically in the ongoing financial spat with the EU.

“It’s not about Finland and Sweden, but about Hungary,” says Márton Tompos.

Unlike Turkey, however, Hungary has never listed conditions for its ratification or linked it to the EU Commission’s intentions to cut cohesion funding.

Tompos estimates that Hungary can have a tacit agreement with Turkey that Turkey will not be left alone to be the only country that has not ratified NATO’s expansion to Finland and Sweden.

Finland and the ratification of Sweden’s NATO applications is not in itself a headwind in Hungary, but seems to have a clear majority behind it in the parliament. The opposition absolutely supports it and Fidesz has never opposed new NATO members at any point.

The Mi Hazánk party to the right of Fidesz, which has six members in the parliament, will also vote against it. The party in question is also openly against Hungary’s EU and NATO membership.

Tompos himself says that he intends to give NATO ratification “as big a yes vote as I have ever given in this building”.