BUDAPEST, June 3 (Reuters) – Prime Minister Peter Magyar said on Wednesday that Hungary and Ukraine reached an agreement on the rights of the Hungarian minority in Ukraine, \u200cwhich could allow approval of the first cluster, or a group of negotiating chapters, \u200cin Ukraine\u2019s EU accession talks.<\/p>\n
The agreement marks a potential breakthrough in a long-running dispute over minority rights that had \u200bstrained ties between Budapest and Kyiv and complicated Hungary\u2019s support for Ukraine\u2019s EU ambitions.<\/p>\n
Every step of the accession process, which is divided into chapters and clusters of policy issues, requires approval from all EU members.<\/p>\n
“We have achieved a breakthrough in our talks with Ukraine about the language, cultural and \u200ceducational rights of the ethnic Hungarian \u2060minority,” Magyar said in a Facebook post during an official trip to Paris.<\/p>\n
Magyar, who ousted Moscow-friendly predecessor Viktor Orban in an April election, said on \u2060Tuesday that he was ready to meet Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy next week to open a new chapter in relations if a deal was reached on minority rights.<\/p>\n
Warmer relations between Hungary and Ukraine are \u200bpivotal \u200bfor the European Union’s backing for Kyiv in Russia’s \u200bwar in Ukraine, with Orban having \u200copposed the flow of billions of euros in aid to Ukraine and its EU membership.<\/p>\n
While Magyar takes a less confrontational approach to Kyiv, he repeatedly said that progress on the rights of some 100,000 ethnic Hungarians in Ukraine to use their native tongue was essential if Budapest is to agree to Ukraine joining the EU.<\/p>\n
Magyar said that according to the agreement, Ukraine will \u200crestore a system of schools for ethnic minorities, and \u200bchildren can use their native language in all school settings.<\/p>\n
Ethnic \u200bHungarian students will also be able \u200bto use the Hungarian national symbols and flags during celebrations and take their \u200cexams in Hungarian.<\/p>\n
“100,000 Hungarians will get back \u200btheir fundamental rights,” Magyar \u200bsaid, adding that Ukraine agreed to enshrine the terms of this agreement in legislation, and also in its action plan for its EU accession talks.<\/p>\n
If that happens, Magyar said, \u200bthen Hungary would support the \u200copening of the first chapter of Ukraine’s accession talks with the EU. However, his \u200bgovernment does not support accelerated membership talks for Ukraine.<\/p>\n
(Reporting by Krisztina Than and \u200bAnita Komuves; Editing by Chris Reese and Sanjeev Miglani)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BUDAPEST, June 3 (Reuters) – Prime Minister Peter Magyar said on Wednesday that Hungary and Ukraine reached an…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1373,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[873,874,872,52,65,67,26,875,72],"class_list":["post-1372","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","tag-accession-talks","tag-eu-accession-talks","tag-hungarian-minority-in-ukraine","tag-hungary","tag-minority-rights","tag-peter-magyar","tag-ukraine","tag-ukraine-joining-the-eu","tag-war-in-ukraine"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1372","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=1372"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1372\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1373"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1372"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1372"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1372"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}