Hungary has lifted its two-year-long veto on Ukraine’s bid to join the European Union, allowing the process to enter its next phase of negotiations and ending a political saga that sent relations between Budapest and Kyiv to an all-time low.<\/p>\n
The sought-after breakthrough took place suddenly on Wednesday evening during a meeting of ambassadors in Brussels, several diplomats confirmed to Euronews.<\/p>\n
The Hungarian envoy signalled the lifting of the reservations, allowing the 27 member states to reach the necessary unanimity to initiate the talks.<\/p>\n
Accession consists of 33 chapters split into six thematic clusters.<\/p>\n
The first cluster, known as fundamentals because it covers the rule of law, human rights and the judiciary, is the first and last to be opened in the complex process.<\/p>\n
For the past two years, Ukraine and Moldova, which are informally coupled as candidates, have been trying to unlock the first cluster.<\/p>\n
But the veto imposed by former Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orb\u00e1n, just as his country took the reins of the EU Council’s presidency, froze the trajectory.<\/p>\n
Since then, Brussels has been trying to get around the veto in various ways, to no avail.<\/p>\n
The matter became personal for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who repeatedly slammed Orb\u00e1n’s blockage and urged leaders to take action. Zelenskyy considers accession as a security guarantee for his country’s post-war future.<\/p>\n
The change was only made possible after Orb\u00e1n was roundly defeated in the polls by P\u00e9ter Magyar, who promised to restore ties between Hungary and Ukraine.<\/p>\n
In a video posted on Facebook, Magyar confirmed progress made in consultations with Kyiv over the rights of the Hungarian minority in the eastern region of Transcarpathia, the long-standing flashpoint of tensions between the two countries.<\/p>\n
“We have reached a comprehensive agreement with Ukraine on the expansion of the linguistic, educational, cultural and political rights of the 100,000-strong Hungarian minority,” Magyar told his followers.<\/p>\n
The commitments, which were not detailed, will be reflected in the action plan that Ukraine has sent to Brussels as part of its membership bid, he said.<\/p>\n
Magyar noted that he remained opposed to fast-tracked accession, a view widely shared by other member states wary of endangering the integrity of enlargement.<\/p>\n
“If Ukraine manages to close all 33 accession chapters within 10 or 15 years, our country will hold a legally binding referendum on the issue,” Magyar said.<\/p>\n
There was no immediate reaction from the Ukrainian side.<\/p>\n
Following Wednesday’s meeting, the EU Council will send a letter to Ukraine and Moldova, which will then respond with their positions for ambassadors to assess.<\/p>\n
The intergovernmental conference, which marks the formal starting point, is expected to take place on either 15 or 16 June in Luxembourg.<\/p>\n
This article has been updated with more information.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hungary has lifted its two-year-long veto on Ukraine’s bid to join the European Union, allowing the process to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1355,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[868,31,867,52,67,866,26,740],"class_list":["post-1354","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","tag-brussels","tag-european-union","tag-hungarian-minority","tag-hungary","tag-peter-magyar","tag-political-rights","tag-ukraine","tag-viktor-orban"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1354","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1354"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1354\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1355"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1354"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1354"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1354"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}