Hungary to block EU negotiation clusters for Ukraine until minority conditions are met

Hungary refuses to support the opening of new accession negotiation clusters for Ukraine’s membership in the European Union until Kyiv demonstrates progress in protecting the rights of the Hungarian national minority.

This is reported by Ukrainian outlets citing sources in the EU.

According to diplomatic sources in the EU Council, Hungary’s representative, during discussions on plans to open clusters 2 and 3 for Ukraine and Moldova, stated that Budapest is ready to move forward — but only on the condition that Ukraine takes concrete steps toward fulfilling a bilateral agreement on the protection of national minority rights.

The Hungarian side explicitly warned that until such progress is made, there will be no movement on opening the clusters.

Earlier, Hungarian Prime Minister Péter Magyar had stated that he opposes the opening of all negotiation clusters for Ukraine. In his view, after the first cluster was opened, the negotiation process should advance according to the merit principle — in the same way it has proceeded with other candidate countries.