Hungary will accept Sweden’s NATO bid next week?

That is the only way PM Orbán and his Fidesz-KDNP coalition could accept Katalin Novák’s resignation, nominate another presidential candidate, and end the scandal that broke the career of the two leading female politicians of Orbán’s party. In such a session, the parliament could accept even Sweden’s NATO bid.

President Katalin Novák resigned yesterday, but the parliament has to accept her decision to leave the office. However, the national assembly’s regular session will only start in end-February. Thus, it may happen that Fidesz will convene an extraordinary session to end the scandal. We wrote about Novák’s presidential pardon and the public outcry it caused in THIS article.

Telex.hu asked Fidesz’s parliamentary group whether they plan to do so but received no answers.

An extraordinary session could end both scandals?

Péter Szijjártó, Hungary’s foreign minister, said yesterday that the Hungarian parliament could vote for Sweden’s NATO accession in end-February. He complained that the Swedish prime minister did not visit Hungary like he visited Türkiye before. Hvg.hu believes that is because the Turkish president had clear demands while PM Orbán has nothing like that.

Hungarian politicians keep repeating that some of their MPs were offended by the statements of Swedish politicians claiming there was a dictatorship in Hungary.

If the government wants to close both issues quickly, they may convene a session for next week. But Fidesz’s parliamentary group leader, Máté Kocsis, did not mention such a scenario in his interview yesterday, concerning the resignation of the president.

Kocsis: President Novák, former Justice Minister Varga made ‘responsible decision’

Katalin Novák and Judit Varga “have made a responsible decision, which we respect”, Mate Kocsis, the group leader of ruling Fidesz, said on his Facebook page on Saturday, referring to their resignation announcements as president of the republic and MP, respectively.

Kocsis said he was grateful to both of them for their work, and thanked them for keeping the interests of the community in mind in the course of their work.

“Their resignation is evidence that, when it comes to the right wing, mistakes have consequences, while on the left even crimes do not,” Kocsis said, adding that the left wing, “still led by Ferenc Gyurcsany”, had “hypocritically attacked” Novak and Varga. He accused Gyurcsany of having led a “cavalry charge against his countrymen in 2006” and living in a villa “stolen from a Jewish family”.

“No one on the left has apologised to voters for calling them rats, for threatening to hang them from lamp posts, for insulting them; as likewise there are no consequences for the corruption in Budapest … and antifa bloodshed…” he said.

Novak and Varga’s decision, Kocsis said, testified to this moral difference.

Read also:

• If Sweden wants to join the NATO, their prime minister will have to travel to Budapest – Details in THIS article
• Hungarian President resigns after pardoning paedophile helper