Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán invited Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson to his country to hold negotiations on Swedenʼs accession to NATO.
He wrote about it in X (Twitter).
In May 2022, Sweden and Finland abandoned their traditional neutrality against the background of Russiaʼs military invasion of Ukraine and applied for NATO membership. Finland joined the bloc in April 2023. Of the 30 NATO countries, Turkey and Hungary have not yet ratified Swedenʼs accession. Turkey blocked the entry, arguing that Stockholm had not fulfilled its obligations to extradite alleged Kurdish extremists.
At the same time, in the summer of 2023, the Hungarian parliament postponed the ratification of Swedenʼs application to join NATO. Hungarian Prime Minister Orbánʼs government believes that Swedish politicians have told "blatant lies" about the state of democracy in Hungary. Later, in July, Hungary declared that it supports Swedenʼs accession to NATO. However, Orbán said relations between Hungary and Sweden must improve before Stockholmʼs membership application is approved by Budapest. Sweden criticizes Hungaryʼs policy of rapprochement with Russia.