NATO membership for Sweden and Finland

[TopHatter]

Hungary's parliament will vote on Sweden's membership in NATO on Monday.

Orban has apparently been satisfied with the promise of Sweden selling Hungary 4 more Gripens and "expand a related logistics contract".

[Monash]

Hungary's parliament will vote on Sweden's membership in NATO on Monday.

Orban has apparently been satisfied with the promise of Sweden selling Hungary 4 more Gripens and "expand a related logistics contract".

The more the better. Who knows? If Orban ever fucks with Sweden or NATO again like he did with this issue suddenly those logistics contracts might start suffering unfortunate delays. Just like the accession vote did.

[Albany Rifles]

Well, well, well....the blind nut finally found the squirrel.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/26/w...?smid=tw-share

Hungary’s Parliament Approves Sweden’s NATO Bid After Stalling


Budapest had been the final obstacle to the Nordic country’s joining the alliance, which has been trying to isolate Russia over its war in Ukraine.

• Share full article
• 1

Prime Minister Viktor Orban of Hungary in Parliament in Budapest on Monday.Credit...Denes Erdos/Associated Press



By Andrew Higgins

Feb. 26, 2024, 11:03 a.m. ETHungary’s Parliament voted on Monday to approve Sweden as a new member of NATO, allowing the Nordic country to clear a final hurdle that had blocked its membership and held up efforts by the military alliance to isolate Russia over its war in Ukraine.

The measure passed after a vote of 188 for and only 6 againstin the 199-member Parliament, which is dominated by legislators from the governing Fidesz party of Prime Minister Viktor Orban.

On Friday, after his Swedish counterpart, Ulf Kristersson, made a visit to Budapest, the Hungarian capital, Mr. Orban declared the end of a monthslong spat with Sweden over its membership of NATO.

Hungary had been stalling for 19 months on ratifying Sweden’s admission, a delay that had puzzled and exasperated the United States and other members of the alliance, raising questions about Hungary’s reliability as a member of the alliance.

The parliamentary vote on Monday followed a decision by Sweden to provide Hungary with four Swedish-made Gripen fighter jets to add to the 14 that the Hungarian Air Force already uses. Stockholm also promised that Saab, which manufactures the warplanes, would open an A.I. research center in Hungary.

Hungary, which had repeatedly promised not to be the last holdout, became the final obstacle to Swedish entry into NATO after the Turkish Parliament voted on Jan. 23 to approve membership.

Mr. Orban, who has maintained cordial relations with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia despite the war in Ukraine, has a long record of using his country’s veto power over key decisions in Europe to try to extract money or other rewards. That pattern was on display during not only his foot-dragging over Sweden’s NATO membership but also his opposition to a European Union financial package for Ukraine worth $54 billion.

Mr. Orban relented this month on approving E.U. aid for Ukraine, a retreat that raised hopes he would quickly order his Fidesz party to hold a vote in Parliament on Sweden. Mr. Orban had assured the NATO secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, on Jan. 24 that Hungary would ratify Sweden’s entry “at the first possible opportunity.”

Image


Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson of Sweden met Mr. Orban in Budapest last week. The Hungarian leader declared the end of a monthslong spat with Sweden over its membership of NATO.Credit...Attila Kisbenedek/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images


But when opposition legislators called a session of Parliament on Feb. 5 to vote on Sweden’s membership, the Fidesz party boycotted the session.

The vote on Monday ended a standoff that had soured Hungary’s relations with the United States and other members of NATO. With the exception of Turkey, all approved Sweden’s membership more than a year ago after the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Even with Hungary’s acceptance of Sweden into the alliance, the long, drawn-out process to get to this point is likely to leave a bitter aftertaste. And the belated assent to the expansion of NATO, to which Hungary makes only a modest contribution, will not quickly change Mr. Orban’s reputation as a troublemaker more interested in cozying up to Mr. Putin, with whom he held an amicable meeting in October during a visit to China, than in supporting the alliance.

Hungary, whose air force depends heavily on Gripen jets from Sweden, has offered multiple and often shifting explanations for the long delay in voting on Swedish membership. It has cited scheduling hiccups, criticism in Sweden of democratic backsliding by Mr. Orban’s increasingly authoritarian government, teaching materials used in Swedish schools and comments made by Mr. Kristersson years before he took office.

Mr. Orban’s tough stance on Sweden, as well as his initial blocking of the Ukraine aid package, reflected his penchant for trying to establish his small country — Hungary has only 10 million people and accounts for just 1 percent of economic output in the European Union — as a force to be reckoned with on the European political stage.

That approach has infuriated fellow European leaders, but rocking the boat and defying mainstream opinion on both NATO and the European Union has increased Mr. Orban’s standing with Europe’s far right and in segments of the far left, both of which are often partial to Mr. Putin. They see Mr. Orban as a courageous scourge of conventional wisdom.

Mr. Orban has long been positioning himself as the contrarian leader of a Pan-European movement that defends national sovereignty and traditional values against what he disparages as out-of-touch “woke globalists” in Brussels, in the headquarters of both NATO and the European Union, and in Washington under the Biden administration.

Sweden, like most members of the European Union, has long accused Hungary of undermining democracy and violating minority rights. But after a right-leaning government came to power in Stockholm last year, it retreated from criticism of Hungarian domestic policy.

Admission to NATO requires the unanimous support of the alliance’s members. Finland was admitted to the alliance last April, but the strategic defeat that move dealt to Mr. Putin had been undermined by the delays in approving Sweden.

[Albany Rifles]

Anyone else wonder how many bottles of ketchup hit the walls at Mar-A-Lago over this news?

[TopHatter]

Anyone else wonder how many bottles of ketchup hit the walls at Mar-A-Lago over this news?

lol sociopathic man-baby is probably flinging everything at the wall these days.

[Amled]

So Orban; like Erdogan before him, turned out to be just another two-bit huckster out for what they could get!
Like door-men at some exclusive club, with their hands out! “You want in, you have to pay!”
Well Sweden paid and got in, better late than never!
If that means that there is a chance that the Big Orange Man and Putin the Putz, chokes on that fact, so much the better!!!

[Albany Rifles]

[TopHatter]

Russia warns of 'risks' should Sweden join NATO

A top Russian official has told a leading Swedish newspaper that the country would be likely to face military action if it were to join Nato.

Nearly one in three Swedes think the country should join Nato, a major poll suggested last month, up from 29 percent of Swedes in 2013 and 17 percent in 2012.

The shift in public opinion is largely credited to a rising fear in the Nordic country of a potentially aggressive Russia. Swedens security service Säpo recently stated that the biggest intelligence threat against the Nordic country in 2014 came from its eastern neighbour.
______

Like Finland, you have to wonder why the Swedes are so jumpy if "Sweden is not a target for [Russian] armed troops" as the Russian ambassador to Sweden claims.
Sweden doesn't typically go around pissing other countries off for the lolz. I'm surprised the Russian ambassador didn't call them American puppets while he was at it.

Sweden formally joins Nato military alliance

Sweden has officially become the 32nd member of Nato after it completed its accession process in Washington.

The handover of documents took place at a ceremony two years after Sweden applied to join the military alliance following Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said that "unity and solidarity" would be Sweden's "guiding lights".

Nato today "is stronger than ever," US President Joe Biden said.

"Nato stands more united, determined, and dynamic" the US leader said, adding that "together with our newest ally Sweden - Nato will continue to stand for freedom and democracy for generations to come."

"This has been a little bit of a road but we've known from day one that we would be here one day," US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said.

Nato Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg posted on X that Sweden brings with it "capable armed forces and a first-class defence industry" and that the alliance had become "stronger and safer".

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky also welcomed Sweden's accession to Nato, saying "one more country in Europe has become more protected from Russian evil."

Russia has vowed to take unspecified political and military measures in response to Sweden's move.

Sweden applied to join the defence alliance after Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 - but its request was blocked by two members.

Turkey initially withheld approval in a row over what it called Sweden's support to Kurdish separatists. It eventually lifted its veto in January of this year.

Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orban accused Sweden of being hostile to it and delayed its approval until last week, when the Hungarian parliament eventually voted to ratify the bid.

All Nato members are expected to help an ally which comes under attack.

Mr Blinken recalled Sweden's 200-year policy of non-alignment which lasted until Russia invaded Ukraine, saying that Nato expansion was not "foreordained" or "foreseeable".

Mr Kristersson said: "We are humble, but we are also proud. We will live up to all expectations."

"We share burdens, responsibilities and risk with other allies."

He added that security situation in the region had not been this serious since World War Two, and added that Sweden was joining Nato both to provide and to gain security.

Finland formally joined in April last year, doubling the length of the alliance's border with Russia.

On Monday a flag-raising ceremony to mark Sweden's accession will take place at the Nato headquarters in Brussels.


Map illustrating Nato's European expansion since 1949

____________

Started this thread almost on a whim, 21 July 2015. Man it's bizarre how much has changed since then.

[Monash]

Good to see Putin's plan to prevent further expansion eastwards by NATO is working out so well! Next stop is westward expansion. Welcome aboard Ireland I say!

[Amled]

Again! Better late than never!!!
There’s more than an iota of sublime irony in the timing!
Now NATO planners are probably very good at their vocation.
But it’s even money, that even they couldn’t have seen their large multi-nation military exercise up north; would have participation of the Alliance’s newest full member!
Also, that it would run concurrent with the flag of that newest member, being run up the flagpole; for the first time, at NATOS’S Headquarters!
The two events being run concurrent must surely have been a big old blue-bottle fly in Putin’s borscht

[Albany Rifles]

Good to see Putin's plan to prevent further expansion eastwards by NATO is working out so well! Next stop is westward expansion. Welcome aboard Ireland I say!

2022, 2023 & 2024!

[Firestorm]

This would be an apt meme however Volvo Cars has been majority Chinese owned (by the Zhejiang Geely Holding Group) since 2010.

[Albany Rifles]

This would be an apt meme however Volvo Cars has been majority Chinese owned (by the Zhejiang Geely Holding Group) since 2010.

Way to ruin the mood!