Hungary\u2019s reset with Ukraine is good news for European deterrence<\/p>\n
EXPERT COMMENT<\/p>\n
Ending a dispute on minority rights would do more than progress Ukraine\u2019s EU accession talks: it could strengthen the continent\u2019s posture towards Moscow.<\/p>\n
Since Russia\u2019s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Hungary has created the most visible fissure in European Union (EU) support for Kyiv. Former Prime Minister Viktor Orb\u00e1n dissented early on from the European consensus. And he progressively turned this dissent into political leverage. Budapest slowed sanctions on Russia, contested assistance to Ukraine, obstructed parts of Kyiv\u2019s European path and blurred the moral and strategic line between aggressor and victim.<\/p>\n
For Moscow, this mattered. Russia did not need Hungary to become an ally in any formal sense. It only needed an EU and NATO member state to make European unity appear conditional, reversible and transactional. Hungary\u2019s role was therefore never only about Hungarian foreign policy. It was about the credibility of Europe\u2019s collective resolve.\u00a0<\/p>\n
That is why Budapest\u2019s emerging reset<\/a> with Kyiv under newly elected P\u00e9ter Magyar is important. Hungary and Ukraine have reached an understanding on a festering dispute over the rights of the Hungarian minority in Transcarpathia.\u00a0<\/p>\n The agreement removes one of the main obstacles to opening EU accession talks with Ukraine \u2013 allowing Kyiv to take the first step on a long road<\/a> to EU membership. Magyar has also signalled his readiness to meet Volodymyr Zelenskyy, presenting the issue as the beginning of a \u2018new chapter\u2019. The phrase may sound diplomatic, but the stakes are more strategic than they sound.<\/p>\n