The Hungarian parliament Monday ratified Sweden's bid to join NATO, ending 18 months of delays in expanding the West's main military alliance in response to Russia's two-year war on Ukraine.
Sweden becomes the 32nd NATO member, following its Nordic neighbor Finland, which joined last year. Additions to the alliance must be unanimously approved by existing members, and Hungary was the last NATO country that had yet to ratify Sweden's accession.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, a right-wing nationalist who has forged close ties with Russia, had said that criticism of Hungary's democracy from Swedish politicians had soured relations between the two countries and made lawmakers in his Fidesz party reluctant to approve Sweden's NATO accession.
But Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson met last Friday with Orban in Budapest, Hungary's capital, where they appeared to reach a decisive reconciliation after months of diplomatic tensions.
Following their meeting, the leaders announced a defense industry agreement that will include Hungary's purchase of four Swedish-made JAS 39 Gripen jets and the extension of a service contract for its existing Gripen fleet.
Orban said the additional fighter jets "will significantly increase our military capabilities and further strengthen our role abroad" and will improve Hungary's ability to participate in joint NATO operations.
"To be a member of NATO together with another country means we are ready to die for each other," Orban said. "A deal on defense and military capacities helps to reconstruct the trust between the two countries."
Kristersson called Stockholm joining NATO "a historic day."
"We stand ready to shoulder our share of the responsibility for NATO's security," Kristersson wrote on the X social media platform.
NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg said, "Sweden's membership will make us all stronger and safer."
Under the NATO charter, forged in the aftermath of World War II, member countries are obligated to join in defending each other if they are attacked.
The provision has only been invoked once, when the U.S. invaded Afghanistan in 2001 to wage war on al-Qaida terrorists after they used hijacked airliners to attack the U.S. on September 11 that year, killing nearly 3,000 people.
But as the 2024 U.S. presidential campaign unfolds, the likely Republican nominee, former President Donald Trump, has raised new doubts about the U.S. relationship with NATO if he wins the November election.
As president, he often chided European allies in NATO who were not meeting the alliance's target that they spend 2% of their countries' economic output on their military and defense needs. Only 11 NATO countries currently meet the goal, led by Poland and the U.S. That number is expected to jump to 18 this year.
At a recent campaign rally, Trump said that as president he told "one of the presidents of a big country" in NATO that if it did not meet the 2% defense spending requirement, he would tell Russia to do "whatever the hell they want" to the country and not commit the U.S. to defend it.
"NATO was busted until I came along," Trump said at the rally. "I said, 'Everybody's going to pay.' They said, 'Well, if we don't pay, are you still going to protect us?' I said, 'Absolutely not.' They couldn't believe the answer."
Some material in this report came from The Associated Press.
