Hungarian parliament approves Sweden’s NATO accession

Hungary’s Parliament voted on Monday to approve Sweden as a new member of NATO, allowing the Nordic country to clear a final hurdle that had blocked its membership and held up efforts by the military alliance to isolate Russia over its war in Ukraine.

The measure passed after a vote of 188 for and only 6 against in the 199-member Parliament, which is dominated by legislators from the governing Fidesz party of Prime Minister Viktor Orban.

On Friday, after his Swedish counterpart, Ulf Kristersson, made a visit to Budapest, the Hungarian capital, Mr. Orban declared the end of a monthslong spat with Sweden over its membership of NATO.

Hungary had been stalling for 19 months on ratifying Sweden’s admission, a delay that had puzzled and exasperated the United States and other members of the alliance, raising questions about Hungary’s reliability as a member of the alliance.

The parliamentary vote on Monday followed a decision by Sweden to provide Hungary with four Swedish-made Gripen fighter jets to add to the 14 that the Hungarian Air Force already uses. Stockholm also promised that Saab, which manufactures the warplanes, would open an A.I. research center in Hungary.

Hungary, which had repeatedly promised not to be the last holdout, became the final obstacle to Swedish entry into NATO after the Turkish Parliament voted on Jan. 23 to approve membership.

Mr. Orban, who has maintained cordial relations with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia despite the war in Ukraine, has a long record of using his country’s veto power over key decisions in Europe to try to extract money or other rewards. That pattern was on display during not only his foot-dragging over Sweden’s NATO membership but also his opposition to a European Union financial package for Ukraine worth $54 billion.

Mr. Orban relented this month on approving E.U. aid for Ukraine, a retreat that raised hopes he would quickly order his Fidesz party to hold a vote in Parliament on Sweden. Mr. Orban had assured the NATO secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, on Jan. 24 that Hungary would ratify Sweden’s entry “at the first possible opportunity.”

But when opposition legislators called a session of Parliament on Feb. 5 to vote on Sweden’s membership, the Fidesz party boycotted the session.

The vote on Monday ended a standoff that had soured Hungary’s relations with the United States and other members of NATO. With the exception of Turkey, all approved Sweden’s membership more than a year ago after the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Even with Hungary’s acceptance of Sweden into the alliance, the long, drawn-out process to get to this point is likely to leave a bitter aftertaste. And the belated assent to the expansion of NATO, to which Hungary makes only a modest contribution, will not quickly change Mr. Orban’s reputation as a troublemaker more interested in cozying up to Mr. Putin, with whom he held an amicable meeting in October during a visit to China, than in supporting the alliance.

Hungary, whose air force depends heavily on Gripen jets from Sweden, has offered multiple and often shifting explanations for the long delay in voting on Swedish membership. It has cited scheduling hiccups, criticism in Sweden of democratic backsliding by Mr. Orban’s increasingly authoritarian government, teaching materials used in Swedish schools and comments made by Mr. Kristersson years before he took office.

Mr. Orban’s tough stance on Sweden, as well as his initial blocking of the Ukraine aid package, reflected his penchant for trying to establish his small country — Hungary has only 10 million people and accounts for just 1 percent of economic output in the European Union — as a force to be reckoned with on the European political stage.

That approach has infuriated fellow European leaders, but rocking the boat and defying mainstream opinion on both NATO and the European Union has increased Mr. Orban’s standing with Europe’s far right and in segments of the far left, both of which are often partial to Mr. Putin. They see Mr. Orban as a courageous scourge of conventional wisdom.

Mr. Orban has long been positioning himself as the contrarian leader of a Pan-European movement that defends national sovereignty and traditional values against what he disparages as out-of-touch “woke globalists” in Brussels, in the headquarters of both NATO and the European Union, and in Washington under the Biden administration.

Sweden, like most members of the European Union, has long accused Hungary of undermining democracy and violating minority rights. But after a right-leaning government came to power in Stockholm last year, it retreated from criticism of Hungarian domestic policy.

Admission to NATO requires the unanimous support of the alliance’s members. Finland was admitted to the alliance last April, but the strategic defeat that move dealt to Mr. Putin had been undermined by the delays in approving Sweden.