Hungary has blocked for a third time the next procedural step toward opening two further clusters in Ukraine’s EU accession talks. At a 1 September meeting of the Council’s Working Party on Enlargement, COELA, Budapest refused to approve the screening results for Cluster 2, Internal Market, and Cluster 3, Competitiveness and Inclusive Growth.
The same step failed on 17 and 22 July. Approval would allow the EU to request Ukraine’s negotiating positions and begin preparing to open the clusters formally.
Hungary’s objection is not known to concern the substance of the two clusters themselves. Rather, they are the next files ready to advance and therefore provide Hungary with leverage over Kyiv. EU diplomatic sources told European Pravda that Hungary wants demonstrable progress on commitments made under the June political agreement protecting the Hungarian minority in Transcarpathia before it lifts its blockade.
That agreement was the first breakthrough in bilateral relations after Prime Minister Péter Magyar replaced Viktor Orbán in May. Kyiv committed to restoring minority-language education and expanding Hungarian-language, cultural, and administrative rights, with guarantees to be incorporated into its EU accession action plan and domestic legislation. Hungary subsequently allowed Cluster 1, Fundamentals, to open on 15 June and later lifted its objection to Cluster 6, External Relations, which opened on 14 July.
The new government has nevertheless resisted Brussels’ preferred pace. Magyar has repeatedly rejected fast-tracking Ukraine, arguing that Kyiv should progress on merit and should not leapfrog Western Balkan candidates that have spent years negotiating membership.
Hungary initially blocked Clusters 2–6 at the technical level before releasing Cluster 6; it is now prepared to advance Cluster 3 for Moldova, but not Ukraine. Most member states have opposed separating the two candidates at this stage.
The continued obstruction is particularly notable because Magyar’s April landslide was greeted across Europe as the end of an era of Hungary’s frequent use of vetoes as political bargaining leverage under Viktor Orbán. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz called the election an inspiration for Europe and said he hoped Hungary would return to the ‘heart of Europe’. Yet on Ukraine, the emerging policy is proving more conditional than many capitals expected: Budapest has abandoned Orbán’s blanket opposition to membership while retaining unanimity as bargaining power.
The same caution is visible at the highest diplomatic level. Despite repeated expectations since spring, Magyar and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy have still not held their planned bilateral meeting. Magyar originally proposed meeting in Berehove (Beregszász), in Transcarpathia, making minority rights the symbolic centre of the encounter. In July, the two agreed to meet first in Budapest or Kyiv, then travel together to Transcarpathia.
Zelenskyy renewed the invitation on 20 August, Hungary’s St Stephen’s Day, inviting Magyar specifically to Kyiv. Foreign Minister Anita Orbán said days later that the meeting would take place when an occasion arose, while maintaining that Transcarpathia remained among the possible locations.
The venue itself has important diplomatic meaning. A Kyiv meeting would cast Magyar primarily as another European leader visiting wartime Ukraine and place Zelenskyy in the position of host. Budapest’s preference for Transcarpathia instead places the Hungarian minority dispute at the centre of the relationship and avoids simply accepting Kyiv’s preferred location.
EU Enlargement Commissioner Marta Kos responded to the latest blockade by saying she expected all remaining clusters to open ‘as soon as possible’. ‘Ukraine has delivered,’ she said. ‘We should deliver too.’
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