Of the 199 lawmakers who should have been present at the voting, only 51 from opposition parties attended the session, while the far-right ruling coalition Fidesz-Hungarian Civic Union and its junior partner Christian Democrats, with 133 seats, were absent.

The extraordinary plenary raised opposition from the ruling alliance, which considered it necessary to wait for the outcome of a planned meeting between the prime ministers of Hungary and Sweden before making a decision at the spring sessions of the legislature on February 26.

The head of the Hungarian Government, Viktor Orban, sent an invitation to his Swedish counterpart, Ulf Kristersson, on January 22 to discuss here the issue of Sweden’s membership in the Atlantic alliance, which Stockholm initially accepted.

However, the Swedish executive later said that the visit of its Prime Minister to this capital would take place after the ratification by the National Assembly (parliament) of the aforementioned membership.

On February 1, both statesmen met in Brussels at the European Union summit, local television reported.

During today’s session, where only introductory replies were heard from the party leaders, the opposition accused the Orban government of acting in the interests of Russia by stopping Sweden’s accession to NATO.

Only the nationalist Our Fatherland party, with six seats, spoke out against the Swedish kingdom’s NATO membership, believing that it creates the threat of a Third World War, as it brings the North Atlantic bloc closer to Russia’s borders.

The Government presented the bill to approve Sweden’s NATO membership in the summer of 2022, but the parliamentarians refused to debate the issue due to anti-Swedish statements from Stockholm at the time, local media reported.

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