A bipartisan delegation of US senators made an official visit to the Hungarian capital on Sunday and called on the nationalist government to immediately approve Sweden’s application for NATO membership. The Hungarian government did not follow up on this visit.
Hungary is the only one of NATO’s 31 current members not to have ratified Sweden’s candidacy. The Hungarian government, facing growing pressure, delayed the request for more than 18 months because admitting a new country to the military alliance requires unanimous approval.
The visiting senators announced they would submit a joint resolution to Congress condemning alleged democratic backsliding in Hungary and urging Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s government to lift its blockade on Sweden’s transatlantic integration.
“By joining the European Union, Hungary and its Prime Minister will be of great service to freedom-loving countries around the world“said Sen. Thom Tillis, a Republican from North Carolina, during a news conference at the U.S. Embassy in Budapest.
The resolution, first reported Sunday by the Associated Press, was authored by Mr. Tillis and Ms. Jeanne Shaheen, a Democratic senator from New Hampshire. Senator Chris Murphy, Democrat of Connecticut, joined them in the delegation that visited Budapest.
Earlier this month, Senator Ben Cardin, Democrat of Maryland and chairman of the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, raised the possibility of imposing sanctions on Hungary for its conduct and called Viktor Orbán “NATO’s least reliable member“.
In the resolution, obtained by the AP, the senators note “the important role that Hungary can play in European and transatlantic security”_ but emphasize that it has not kept its earlier promises not to be the last NATO ally to approve Sweden’s membership.
The resolution states regarding Hungary: “that it failed to join all other NATO member states in approving Sweden’s membership in NATO, thereby breaching its commitment not to be the last to approve membership and putting security at risk transatlantic at a key moment for peace and stability in Europe“.
The Hungarian Parliament says it is ready for a vote
Mr. Orbán, a staunch nationalist who has led Hungary since 2010, said he favored Sweden’s integration into NATO, but that his party’s lawmakers were unconvinced because of “blatant lies” Swedish politicians on the state of Hungarian democracy.
However, in a state of the nation speech in Budapest on Saturday, Orbán indicated that Hungary’s legislature may soon relent.
“It’s good news that our dispute with Sweden is about to be resolved“, did he declare. “We are moving towards the ratification of Sweden’s membership in NATO at the start of the spring session of Parliament.
On Sunday, Ms Shaheen said it was “disappointing” that no member of the Hungarian government had accepted the invitation to meet the delegation, but that she was “optimistic and hopeful” that the membership of Sweden would be subject to ratification on February 26, when Hungarian lawmakers resume their work.
Ms Murphy said the Orbán government’s refusal to meet the delegation was “strange and disturbing“, but that it was up to the longtime leader to move the vote forward.
“We are politically savvy enough to know that if Prime Minister Orbán wants this to happen, Parliament can move forward“, did he declare.
Hungary refuses “any pressure”
The senators’ resolution criticizes Mr. Orbán’s increasingly warm relations with Russia and China, and notes that while Hungary opened its doors to Ukrainian refugees fleeing Moscow’s invasion, it also “resisted and diluted European Union sanctions against the Russian Federation“.
Mr. Orbán, widely seen as the Kremlin’s closest ally in the European Union, has long been criticized for his disregard for the bloc’s standards on democracy and the rule of law. The EU has withheld billions of dollars in funding from Budapest over alleged violations of its rules.
The Hungarian government has also taken an increasingly hostile stance toward President Joe Biden’s administration, accusing the United States of trying to influence Hungarian public life.
Péter Szijjártó, Hungary’s foreign minister, said Friday that he welcomed the senators’ visit, but that it was “useless to try to put pressure on us, because we are a sovereign country.” .
“We are happy that they are coming here because they can see for themselves that everything they read about Hungary in the American liberal media is a blatant lie.”said Mr. Szijjártó.