“Given the direction of the Hungarian government, I would not be approving further cooperation with Hungary with regards to military materiel,” he said.
‘Very childish’
Getting Sweden’s prime minister to come to Budapest was likely an incentive for Orbán, said Márton Tompos, a Hungarian MP from the opposition Momentum Movement.
“We shouldn’t underestimate the ego part,” he said. “For a person like him, that’s a huge appeal.”
The Hungarian PM calls the shots in Budapest, and without his acquiescence there was no way Sweden would get the nod on joining the alliance, which meant jumping through some hoops.
“If you look what kind of excuses they were coming up, these are changing week by week,” said Ágnes Vadai, an MP from the opposition Democratic Coalition party and a member of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly.
“First, they said, ‘We want more respect from Swedish politicians’, then they said certain videos shouldn’t be on the internet, then they said, ‘We want a delegation to go to Sweden,’ and now they want the prime minister of Sweden to come to Budapest.”
Vadai added: “This is, I think, very, very childish. They are really very irrational.”
