Senator James E. Risch, a Republican politician representing the state of Idaho in the upper chamber of Congress, blocked the sale of $735 million worth of arms to Hungary. He is refusing to clear the deal in protest of Hungary’s refusal to approve Sweden’s NATO membership. Democratic President Joe Biden and his administration have been in favour of Sweden’s NATO accession for a long time. With the latest development in the Senate, it appears that this is a bipartisan position.
Senator Risch is a ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which gives him
the power to unilaterally veto any arms deal of a significant size.
The State Department cannot even ‘publicly notice’ a proposed arms deal before it gets the greenlight from the House’s and the Senate’s relevant committees.
The Washington Post quotes the Idaho Senator as saying:
‘For some time now, I have directly expressed my concerns to the Hungarian government regarding its refusal to move forward with a vote in favour of Sweden joining NATO. The fact that it is now June and still not done, I decided that the sale of new US military equipment to Hungary will be on hold.’
The Post has also reached out for comment to the spokesperson’s office for the Hungarian government, but they did not receive a reply.
The proposed arms deal package would include 24 HIMARS rocket launcher batteries, and more than 100 rockets and pods along with associated parts and support, as The Post reports. However, Hungary, along with three other countries, has just signed a letter of intent about a major air force equipment acquisition deal with France, so Budapest will not be left without modern weaponry.
Why Hungary Is Hesitant to Approve Sweden NATO Membership
In the meantime, Hungary is involved in a ‘scuffle’ of its own with the Swedish government. In the past, both President Katalin Novák and Prime Minister Orbán have voiced their support for the Nordic country joining the alliance. However, the National Assembly has still refused to approve the candidacy bid. Also, PM Orbán has struck a less sympathetic tone about the Swedish ambitions since, saying in late May that ‘better relations’ are needed between Sweden and Hungary before the accession is ratified.
The core of the conflict is the withheld EU funds.
Hungary has yet to receive about €36 billion of its due funding from the Union while undergoing a ‘rule of law’ assessment procedure. Many in the Fidesz-supermajority parliament of Hungary feel the Swedish government is partly responsible for the misconception about the state of democracy and rule of law in the country, which resulted in the huge sums of COVID recovery and EU cohesion money being withheld. Back in March, Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó met with his Swedish counterpart, Tobias Billström, in Stockholm to reach an agreement on these thorny issues—however, no major steps forward were made.
Many in the Western mainstream media, on the other hand, speculate that the Orbán administration is actually doing Russia’s bidding with its hesitancy about the proposed Swedish NATO membership.
Hungary and Turkey are the two holdout nations refusing to ratify, and they both face similar criticism.
However, this is contradicted by the fact that, going against Russian interests, both nations approved Finland’s NATO accession, thus allowing the Nordic state to become the 31st nation in the military alliance on 4 April this year.
