Hungary: Hungary, one of only two NATO members to have not yet formally endorsed Sweden's and Finland's applications to join the Western military alliance, may require more time than anticipated for its lawmakers to vote on ratification, according to the chief of staff to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban.

Budapest had anticipated discussing the matter in its first parliamentary meeting of the year, which was earlier this month, but Orban said on Friday that lawmakers need more time to discuss the issue.

He claims that both NATO candidates have told "outright lies" in order to cast doubt on Hungary's democracy and rule of law.

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Earlier this week, the Hungarian National Assembly announced that the week beginning March 6 might see a final vote on the proposed expansion of NATO. Gergely Gulyas, an aide to Orban, told reporters on Saturday that lawmakers might require more time.

According to Gulyas at a press conference, Parliament will put the subject on its agenda on Monday and begin discussing Sweden's and Finland's NATO membership bids the following week. According to Hungarian law, adopting legislation takes about four weeks. As a result, the vote in parliament is likely to take place sometime in the second half of March, during the week of March 21.

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The postponement occurs amid tense relations between the two prospective NATO members and the two remaining recalcitrant members of the bloc, Hungary and Turkey.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the president of Turkey, declared last month that he had decided against supporting Sweden's bid after criticising Stockholm for allowing a Koran-burning demonstration in front of the Turkish embassy. All 30 NATO members must agree to admit any prospective member.

Erdogan previously stated that he would be reluctant to permit either of the two Nordic nations to join the bloc due to their support for Kurdish groups that Ankara views as terrorist organisations.

In order to allay these worries and clear the way for the NATO expansion to be approved, Turkey, Sweden, and Finland signed a deal in June of last year. Erdogan asserted that the Koran-burning stunt broke the terms of the agreement.

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Sweden defended its decision to allow the Koran demonstration by asserting that due to the country's protections for free speech, it couldn't be prohibited. Peter Szijjarto, the foreign minister of Hungary, sided with Turkey in the argument, calling Sweden's response "just plain stupidity."