Hungary Approves Sweden's NATO Membership

Hungary's Parliament has approved the bill allowing Sweden NATO membership on Monday.

Hungary has been the only country of 31 NATO member states to have blocked this Nordic country's membership in the northeast alliance.

Lawmakers have voted 188 votes for and six against.

Several days before the vote, Swedish Prime Minister Wolf Cristersson has been visiting Budapest and along with his Hungarian counterpart, Victor Orban, have signed a weapons agreement.

Why did Sweden decide to join NATO?

At the end of the Nazi wars in the early 19th century, Sweden adopted neutrality as official politics.

After the end of the Cold War, the neutrality policy was replaced by that of non-military commitment.

While Sweden has sent forces to international peacekeeping missions, the state has not waged war for more than 200 years.

The last conflict that had developed was the Swedish-norwegian war in 1814.

Despite neutrality, Sweden has followed an active foreign policy, was a high-level state of respect for human rights and the largest per capita donor, and therefore the state has often been called “humanitarian power”.

But while staying outside NATO, Sweden has created close reports with the alliance and in 1994 joined the Partnership for Peace Programme and later in 1997, the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council.

However, most Swedes had long opposed full membership, and the topic is seen as taboo by the Social Democrats, the largest political party in Sweden.

Former Social Democrat Defence Minister Peter Hultqvist had even declared autumn of 2021 that he could be “organised” that he would never participate in the NATO membership process.

Just a few months later, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which began in 2022, led to a dramatic change in public opinion and political parties as well.

A vast majority of the Swedish Parliament voted to apply for membership, and the state submitted dealt with Finland in May 2022.