In his annual State of the Nation address to a public of Fidesz faithful on Saturday, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said Sweden’s bid to join NATO may be ratified by Parliament early in its spring session (starting on Monday next week).

Meanwhile, a three-member US Senate delegation that came to Hungary apparently to urge ratification complained that they hadn’t been received by any government or Fidesz officials. Foreign Minister Péter Szíjjártó said Hungary makes her decisions on her own without needing pressure from abroad.

In Magyar Nemzet, Ottó Gajdics praises Prime Minister Orbán, for ’inspiring enthusiasm and calm’ in his speech on Saturday. Western media, he writes, concentrated on the Prime Minister’s words on an early ratification of Sweden’s accession to NATO, but ’what is more important to us’, intense negotiations have been underway for weeks between Sweden and Hungary ’on a giant industrial-military deal’. And the agreement is imminent, he adds.

On Index, Gergely Borsi reports that although no specifics have been disclosed about the negotiations between Hungary and Sweden, it is believed that new deliveries of Swedish Gripen fighter jets may be part of the planned agreement. Hungarian Air Force pilots have flown  Gripens for two decades and their licence expires this year. Borsi also writes that preparations are underway for an early visit by Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson to Budapest.

MTI Photo: Szilárd Koszticsák

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