A parliamentary delegation from the Hungarian governing parties has visited Finland and Sweden in recent days to discuss the NATO accession of the two countries.
Fidesz MPs Csaba Hende and Zsolt Németh, and Fidesz MEPs Enikő Győri and Ernő Schaller-Baross held high-level talks in Stockholm and Helsinki.
Zsolt Németh, chairman of the Parliament’s foreign affairs committee, stressed in Facebook posts that they support the accession of Sweden and Finland because it would strengthen NATO. Enikő Győri wrote that Finnish Foreign Minister Pekka Haavisto is ready for a substantive dialogue with Hungary and has shown a keen interest in the fate of the Hungarian minority in Ukraine. The establishment of a Hungarian friendship group in the Swedish parliament is a sign of the success of the Stockholm talks.
Speaker of Finnish Parliament Matti Vanhanen said in an interview with Hungarian news portal 444.hu that they had listened to the Hungarian position on Finland’s accession to NATO and said they were very satisfied because “they made it very clear that Hungary supports our accession”. He later explained that they had no problem with the fact that only government party members were in the delegation, having recently received a one-party group from the United States. The speaker explained that the Hungarian delegation did not set an admission deadline for when they would support Finland’s accession to NATO.
The decision on the delegations’ visit was taken in Parliament after the government supported the accession of Sweden and Finland to NATO, but there was no complete agreement in the governing party groups. Earlier, the far-left leader of the Finnish parliament’s foreign affairs committee had said he had nothing to discuss with the Hungarian delegation, but this did not appear to have prevented successful negotiations with other leaders.