Last week, Fidesz, the leading party in Hungary, told Reuters that it would vote on March 27 to ratify Finland's NATO application. Now NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg confirms that Hungary will approve Finland's membership of NATO on Monday, TT reports.
He gives the message at a press conference in Brussels.
"I spoke this morning with Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto and he confirmed that there will be a vote on 27 March in the Hungarian Parliament on ratification of Finland and we will then continue to work to make progress in ratification for Sweden," he said.
Can wait with Sweden
It is unclear whether this means that Hungary, like Turkey, will wait to approve Sweden's application. When Turkey on Friday chose to give the green light for Finland in NATO, but not Sweden, there were reports that Hungary intends to do the same.
As recently as Monday, however, Foreign Minister Tobias Billström (M) expressed that Sweden "stands where we stand" regarding the situation with Hungary.
"As long as we haven't heard anything else, we assume that we will be ratified. We think that's a reasonable assumption," he said at the time.