Hungarian lawmakers will vote on the NATO bids by Finland and Sweden in early March, according to the parliamentary agenda published on Wednesday.
The general debate on their membership bids will take place next week, and the votes — for each country separately — will be held from 6-9 March, the parliament said on its website.
Turkey and Hungary are the only NATO members still to ratify the bids from both Nordic countries, which must be accepted by all 30 existing members of the military organisation.
Hungary has signalled it expects to approve membership for Sweden and Finland, declaring that it has no objections.
The deadline for the ratification vote has been postponed several times, Orban’s chief of staff saying that Hungary had to first pass anti-corruption reforms before parliament could turn to the NATO issue.”
The Hungarian opposition accused Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s ruling party Fidesz of dragging its feet over the vote.
Orban, a close ally of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has been keen to maintain ties with Moscow despite Russia’s invasion of neighbouring Ukraine.
While Orban has condemned Russian aggression, he has refused to criticise Russian President Vladimir Putin by name.
Finland and Sweden dropped decades of military non-alignment and applied to join NATO last May in response to Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.
Turkey has so far held off on ratifying Sweden and Finland’s NATO membership applications, but has indicated that it is ready to accept Finland into NATO
