No Blank Check for NATO Candidates Finland and Sweden from Budapest, hungarytoday.hu

Some Hungarian government politicians want to seek assurances from the two new Scandinavian NATO candidates that politically motivated attacks will cease once they join the defense alliance, Gergely Gulyás, Minister of the Prime Minister’s Office, hinted at the Government Info in Budapest on Saturday. Although Prime Minister Viktor Orbán had in the past expressed his willingness to ratify NATO’s expansion with new members, it seems not everyone is enthusiastic about the proposal.

On the accession of Finland and Sweden to NATO it seems some government politicians are unwilling to write a blank check for the new candidates due to the fact that the governments of both have shown a fair amount of hostility towards Budapest in recent year. The minister said that NATO is a defense alliance and they are confident that it will be further strengthened with the accession of the two countries. At the same time, the risks are increasing, especially for Finland’s location.

Asked about the debate in the Fidesz parliamentary group on the ratification of Finnish and Swedish NATO membership, Gergely Gulyás added that the group had noted that Hungary had very often been criticized in Sweden and Finland, and these attacks have been “completely unfounded, dishonest and unfair”. Moreover, he continued, the Swedish and Finnish judicial systems contain fewer elements that guarantee the rule of law than the Hungarian system. Läs artikel