{"id":461676,"date":"2025-09-29T23:57:11","date_gmt":"2025-09-29T23:57:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/461676\/"},"modified":"2025-09-29T23:57:11","modified_gmt":"2025-09-29T23:57:11","slug":"commission-backs-costas-plan-to-sidestep-hungarys-veto-over-ukraines-eu-bid-politico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/461676\/","title":{"rendered":"Commission backs Costa\u2019s plan to sidestep Hungary\u2019s veto over Ukraine\u2019s EU bid \u2013 POLITICO"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>While Costa\u2019s plan still requires unanimity to approve a country\u2019s final accession \u2014 preserving the collective authority of EU nations over the ultimate decision \u2014 lowering the threshold to start talks could get things moving and alleviate frustration in Kyiv <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.eu\/article\/eu-must-unblock-moldova-membership-bid-government-deputy-pm-gherasimov-historic-vote\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">and Chi\u0219in\u0103u<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The move would help candidate countries, such as Ukraine and Moldova, to begin reforms to align with EU standards, even if one or two members officially oppose beginning negotiations.<\/p>\n<p>EU diplomats see Costa\u2019s proposal as a way to overcome repeated obstruction from Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orb\u00e1n, whose veto has stalled Ukraine and Moldova\u2019s progress.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen a country is held back for no objective reasons, despite meeting the criteria, the credibility of the entire enlargement process is at risk,\u201d Mercier said.<\/p>\n<p>While supportive of efforts to accelerate the process, the Commission stressed that any decision to advance EU membership talks ultimately rests with member countries. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s really for the member states to decide on the next steps, and we hope to open cluster one as soon as possible,\u201d Mercier said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"While Costa\u2019s plan still requires unanimity to approve a country\u2019s final accession \u2014 preserving the collective authority of&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":461677,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7654],"tags":[6561,2000,299,2190,60437,13491,657,1220,1781],"class_list":{"0":"post-461676","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ukraine","8":"tag-enlargement","9":"tag-eu","10":"tag-europe","11":"tag-hungary","12":"tag-marta-kos","13":"tag-moldova","14":"tag-ukraine","15":"tag-ursula-von-der-leyen","16":"tag-viktor-orban"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115290298390869561","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/461676","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=461676"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/461676\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/461677"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=461676"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=461676"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=461676"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}