Sweden must show respect in its bilateral relations with Hungary, and members of the Hungarian parliament will certainly be ready to speed up the ratification of the Scandinavian country’s accession to NATO, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said on Friday, according to official Hungarian news. agency MTI, quoted by Agerpres.

The head of Hungarian diplomacy, who participated in the annual To Be Secure (2BS) conference in Budva, Montenegro, recalled that the government in Budapest submitted ratification documents to the legislature last year, stressing that “the decision is now in the hands of the national assembly.”

He also noted that it is “unacceptable and insulting” that, while insisting on the ratification of its accession to NATO, Sweden constantly repeats that Hungary is not a democratic state.

Sweden applied to join NATO last year in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and most members of the alliance quickly ratified its application. However, Turkey and Hungary have yet to ratify Sweden’s request, and both countries said they were closely coordinating their positions on the matter.

Hungary’s approval has been stalled in parliament since July 2022 amid concerns about criticism from Swedish politicians of Hungary’s rollback from democracy.

On the war in Ukraine: “We Hungarians do not want so many ethnic Hungarians to die”

Regarding the war in Ukraine, Peter Szijjarto repeated in Budva the position of the Hungarian government that Hungary is in a “special situation”, considering the 155,000 ethnic Hungarians living in the Ukrainian Transcarpathia, many of whom are fighting and dying at the front. “We Hungarians do not want so many people, so many ethnic Hungarians to die,” he said.

The Hungarian foreign minister also assessed that the EU could “easily solve the problem” of the concern expressed by some member states about the attempt by some foreign countries to expand their influence in the Western Balkans, namely by integrating the Western Balkan states into the community. block , adding that the “shocking” 2030 deadline proposed recently by EU President Charles Michel “may be too late.”