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Orban is defying the European Union by vetoing Finland and Sweden in NATO


Yesterday, the Finnish Parliament overwhelmingly approved its decision to become a full member of NATO with 184 votes in favor and 7 against. The vote took place one day after the visit of the Secretary General of NATO to a country. Jens Stoltenberg, Which also announced that it held a meeting next week in Brussels with representatives of Turkey, Sweden and Finland. The aim of this meeting is to try to calm the sensibilities of the Turkish, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has put Sweden in the crosshairs of his criticism and intends to object to its entry. Everything seemed focused on resolving the problems between Stockholm and Ankara — including the prospect of Finland entering the alliance on its own — when the controversial Hungarian prime minister, Viktor Orbán, appears in ambush, who intends to wrestle the EU with a veto in NATO as well.

Yesterday the Hungarian parliament started to debate Ratification of the accession of the two Nordic countries to NATO The vote is scheduled for the end of March. It will not be an automatic decision, as expected of a country that also participates in EU membership with candidates for NATO accession, but that it will be a ‘serious discussion’ which could include sending a delegation to Stockholm and Helsinki to consider the situation, which is out of practice in Europe. But the truth is that Orbán himself promotes this ambiguity and in an interview published last Friday he said that “although we are in principle in favor of Sweden and Finland joining NATO, it must We first have to have some serious discussions.”

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The Hungarian prime minister now wants the bill passed to both governments for endorsing Hungary’s criticism of questionable democratic rule-of-law practices and keeping the tap on reconstruction aid closed for now. According to Orban, there are sectors of his party that question the idea of ​​helping countries that “spread blatant lies about Hungary, about the rule of law in Hungary, about democracy or about life here, to join NATO. How can they want to be our allies in a military regime While blatantly spreading lies about Hungary?

European values

Budapest has a bitter dispute with the European Commission and Parliament keeping the extraordinary funds frozen because in Brussels they consider Orban’s behavior wrong with regard to European values. Vice President of the European Commission, Vera Jourova He said in early February that Orban must quickly resolve objections raised about the independence of the judiciary if he wants to receive the €5.8 billion in grants from the post-pandemic recovery fund that was awarded to him.

In recent months, Helsinki and Stockholm have kept silent about the situation in Hungary, so as not to add fuel to the fire. In Helsinki, Stoltenberg again asked Turkey and Hungary to confirm the entry of the two new allies as soon as possible. I hope they endorse it soon. said Stoltenberg, who also didn’t want to get into controversy when asked specifically about Hungary. “The moment has come. Finland meets all the criteria, and so does Sweden. So we are working hard, and the goal is to have this ready as quickly as possible.”

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Under these circumstances, multiple possibilities open up, the first of which is that the two countries cannot enter NATO simultaneously, and it would also be logical in this case to send a solid political message to Russia in this gesture. But if this is not possible due to Turkey’s reluctance to Sweden, Finland will probably be the first country to be recognized as a member even of the Stoltenberg agenda. Indeed, yesterday’s vote gives the Finnish Prime MinisterSana Martin, Three months time to implement the official income. In other words, before June 1, the situation between Sweden and Turkey must resolve. If Hungary joins the diplomatic maze, the issue will enter a delicate situation. It may not be a coincidence that Finland started building a wall on its border with Russia.

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