Hungary blocks opening of new negotiating clusters on Ukraine’s EU accession

Hungary was the only country to block the approval of a common position among the 27 European Union members required to open new negotiating clusters on Ukraine’s and Moldova’s accession to the bloc.

This was reported by Politico.

According to the outlet, Budapest opposed a joint letter from the European Council and the European Commission. As a result, the matter will be put up for renewed discussion next week.

Hungary’s position is not uniform. Hungarian Prime Minister Péter Magyar had previously stated that he is against opening all negotiating clusters for Ukraine simultaneously. In his view, after the first cluster is opened, the negotiation process should advance on the basis of the merit principle — in the same way it proceeded with other EU candidate countries.

Former Prime Minister Viktor Orbán holds an even harder line: he considers Ukraine’s accession to the European Union a mistake and has stated that “Kyiv will bring war to the EU.”