Swedish Foreign Minister Tobias Billstrom said Monday that he expects Hungary’s parliamentary ratification of its NATO membership before the end of the year, as part of the necessary approval by the 30 allies of Sweden and Finland’s entry into the military organization.
«The signals coming from Budapest about the Parliament’s ratification are positive and hopefully it will happen this autumn, in the next few weeks until December. We think it is a positive thing,» the Swedish foreign minister said on the sidelines of the EU foreign ministers’ meeting.
According to him, the parliamentary process in Hungary has its deadlines but the signals coming from the Magyar country is that the ratification is ready «in mid-December». Budapest assured in October that it will give the go-ahead for Sweden and Finland to join NATO by mid-December at the latest.
Hungary is one of the only two countries that have not submitted to a parliamentary vote the union of the two Nordic countries that applied to join NATO after the beginning of the conflict in Ukraine.
The other ally pending membership is Turkey, which claims lack of cooperation from Stockholm and Helsinki in the fight against the terrorism of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and is threatening to delay its accession to the alliance.
In Ankara’s view, Sweden and Finland are still not complying with the agreement signed on the margins of the NATO summit in Madrid and are asking to speed up the extradition of alleged terrorists wanted by the Turkish authorities as an «indispensable» condition for NATO enlargement.
