Playing the Long Game: Hungarian Parliament Continues to delay Sweden’s NATO Accession Bid

On 28 June 2023, the Hungarian Parliament’s House Committee rejected a proposal to schedule a weekly plenary vote ratifying Sweden’s NATO membership bid (Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 2023). Incidentally, this is the final week of the chamber’s spring session, meaning that Parliamentarians will not return until the ordinary autumn sessions start in late August or early September. Therefore, the only chance to vote on Stockholm’s accession to the alliance is through an extraordinary session, which may only convene upon a motion by the President, the Government or one-fifth of the Parliament’s members (Hungarian National Assembly, n.d.).

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Reshaping Collective Defence Plans and Addressing Open Questions: How NATO is Approaching the Vilnius Summit

On July 11th and 12th, 2023, NATO heads of state and government are convening in Vilnius, Lithuania, for the Alliance’s annual summit, which is very likely to prove a watershed moment in NATO’s recent history for several reasons. Read further to discover

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Turmoil in Kosovo

On 29 May 2023, Serb protesters clashed with troops of the NATO-led mission in Kosovo* (KFOR) after demonstrators attempted to force their way into a government building in Zvecan, located in the Serb-majority northern part of the territory (Bytyci, 2023a). The clashes resulted in approximately 30 KFOR peacekeepers suffering injuries (Bytyci, 2023a). Prior to the incident, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic ordered, on 26 May, an urgent movement of troops to the border with Kosovo after ethnic Serbs had clashed with local police in the country (Al Jazeera, 2023).

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What Benefits and Disadvantages does Sweden and Finland get from NATO?

This Info Flash will first examine the international relations between Sweden, Hungary, and Türkiye, which are tense since Sweden started its accession process to join NATO in the aftermath of the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. With this context, the second part of the paper will conduct an analysis of the benefits and disadvantages for Sweden, Finland, and NATO itself in accepting these new member states.

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Russia Spy Ships Gather Intelligence in the North Sea for Future Sabotages

On 19 April 2023, a joint investigation of Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, and Finnish public broadcasters found that Russia has been using boats disguised as fishing and research ships to perform surveillance and gather intelligence in the North Sea.

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