Volkonski wrote: ↑Mon Mar 27, 2023 3:45 pm
Hungary parliament backs Finland's NATO accession, Swedish bid pending
Hungary's parliament approved a bill on Monday to allow Finland to join NATO once its application has been ratified by all 30 members of the alliance, ending months of foot-dragging by the ruling Fidesz party on the matter.
I think Hungary saw the light, perhaps with a gentle behind-the-scenes nudge by the EU, or perhaps on its own. I think the scenario is simple: Hungary has a GDP of about $180 billion, one of the lowest per capita of a mid-sized or larger country in Europe. There are a number of large industrial plants from German and other countries located there to take advantage of cheap labor rates. Perhaps the largest is Audi's plant in Gyor, which probably did over 8 billion euros (almost 5% of GDP) last year.
A weakening economy plus a nudge from EU to Audi could cause that plant to be the first auto plant in Audi's portfolio to be shut down, and that single plant alone would tip the Hungarian economy into recession. A handful of others would hammer it. Europe is more likely to have a tough 2023 than North America, so there's a lot more risk in not going along with the EU program than when things were rosy. Hungary doesn't have the financial firepower to carry the population after a big jump in unemployment for too long.
I also think Orban realizes that pissing off the EU is not working really well for the UK, as the EU didn't really give up an inch on the Brexit negotiations, and the Brits will be suffering from disobeying the EU for decades to come. So he's got to be thinking that if the EU jerks his chain, it's going to hurt more than he thought previously.
Better to go along with the program now rather than trying to be friends with other totalitarians like Putin. He will probably go along with Sweden's accession to NATO when Erdogan in Turkey does.
Incidentally, the announcement last week that the four Nordic countries would set up a joint air force command was a brilliant political move to devalue Erdogan's obstinacy in voting Sweden into NATO. It's a clear message that a joint air command gives them a significant fraction of the benefits of Sweden in NATO without Erdogan's approval. So his leverage just went down. Wait for a pair of announcements of unified Nordic naval and ground commands in a couple of months if Erdogan doesn't cave in. Of course, the truth is that there's already a lot of coordination already in place, so none of that is a huge sea change from the way the four countries work with each other and with the US and with NATO as a whole.