Western ambassadors put pressure on Hungary to ratify Sweden’s NATO membership.
February 7th, 2024A pro-government commentator compares the US ambassador to erstwhile Soviet oppressors because of his presence at Mondays’ extraordinary session of Parliament which was convened at the initiative of the opposition to vote on Sweden’s accession to NATO but boycotted by the governing majority. A liberal author dismisses such comparison as absurd.
The session was also attended, in addition to Mr David Pressman, by the ambassadors of Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands and Slovakia. Sweden’s NATO membership bid was discussed by Parliament in March last year with only the final vote pending. In the absence of the majority of deputies, the agenda could not be adopted and the session was closed. Foreign Minister Péter Szíjjártó said Hungary is ready to ratify Sweden’s accession to NATO and is only waiting for a visit by the Swedish Prime Minister to Hungary.
Magyar Nemzet carries an Op Ed comment by Antal Tamás Tóth who accuses the US ambassador of interfering in Hungarian home affairs more brazenly than even Soviet officials before 1990. He writes Mr Pressman went to Parliament in the role of the factual boss of the opposition parties that staged the show to please him. Tóth then likens the opposition to the communists who invited Soviet troops to crush the 1956 revolution.
On 444, Márk Herczeg writes that Tóth’s remarks could easily have been published in the communist party daily in the early 1950s. He adds that Soviet troops committed rapes throughout Hungary, deported hundreds of thousands of Hungarians to forced labour camps and kept Hungary under military occupation for 45 years.