A shift in Budapest’s stance could end long-running delays in Ukraine’s EU talks. Officials say experts arrived with the same faces but different instructions.
The governments of Viktor Orbán and Péter Madar sent the same experts to negotiations on the rights of the Hungarian national minority, but with different attitudes.
The deputy head of the Committee on Humanitarian and Information Policy of the Verkhovna Rada, Yevheniia Kravchuk, said on a TV broadcast that the Orbán and Madar governments have different approaches, but for the same negotiations on minority rights, the same experts from Hungary came – the same people, but with different attitudes.
Key points and implications
This means the end of political blocking (the negotiations for Ukraine’s accession to the EU) by Hungary. Because it is quite obvious that the Orbán government and the Madar government have different approaches. That is, for the same negotiations on minority rights, essentially the same experts from Hungary came, the same people, but with different attitudes. If Orbán said that you should not come to an agreement, then the new government was ready to lift this political blocking, which evidently was dictated by Moscow, considering the close contacts of the previous government with the Russian Federation
– Yevheniia Kravchuk
She also noted that the Plan of Measures for National Minorities approved by the Cabinet covers all national minorities in Ukraine, not only the Hungarian one, and will be implemented in 2026-2027.
Kravchuk also reminded that before making the decision to open the cluster “Foundations” the President Volodymyr Zelensky signed a law that provides for removing the Russian language from the list of languages to be protected under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages.
The country that signs and then ratifies the Charter itself chooses the list of languages that need to be protected and supported. By what principle are these languages chosen? They must be under threat, i.e., require support. It is clear that Russian language never needed it (…) on the contrary, Russian displaced Ukrainian, including the languages of indigenous peoples and minority languages
– Yevheniia Kravchuk
She also emphasized that opening the cluster “Foundations” is an important step on the path to EU membership.
It is also known that Cyprus’s presidency of the Council of the EU is convening on Monday, June 15, the Intergovernmental Conferences on accession with Ukraine and Moldova to open Cluster 1 “Foundations”.