BUDAPEST, Hungary — Two U.S. senators will submit a bipartisan resolution to Congress condemning democratic backsliding in Hungary and urging its nationalist government to lift its block on Sweden’s accession into the NATO military alliance.
The resolution, authored by U.S. Sens. Jeanne Shaheen, a New Hampshire Democrat, and Thom Tillis, a North Carolina Republican, comes as Hungary’s government is under increasing pressure to ratify Sweden’s bid to join NATO, something it has delayed for more than 18 months.
Unanimity is required among all NATO member countries to admit a new ally, and Hungary is the only one of the 31 member states not to have backed Sweden’s bid.
In the resolution, obtained by The Associated Press, the senators note “the important role Hungary can have in European and trans-Atlantic security,” but point out its failure to keep earlier promises not to be the last NATO ally to sign off on Sweden’s membership.
Hungary, the resolution says, “has not joined all other NATO member states in approving the accession of Sweden to NATO, failing to fulfil a commitment not to be last to approve such accession and jeopardizing trans-Atlantic security at a key moment for peace and stability in Europe.”
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, a staunch nationalist who has led Hungary since 2010, has said that he favors Sweden’s NATO accession, but that lawmakers in his party remain unconvinced because of “blatant lies” from Swedish politicians on the state of Hungary’s democracy.
After Turkey’s parliament voted to back Stockholm’s bid in January, attention has shifted to Budapest, the last holdout, as NATO members seek to expand the alliance amid Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
The senators’ resolution criticizes Orbán’s increasingly warm relations with Russia and China, and notes that while Hungary has opened its doors to Ukrainian refugees fleeing Moscow’s invasion, it has also “resisted and diluted European Union sanctions…
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