Hungary has signalled it will stop blocking the next stage of European Union accession talks with Ukraine and Moldova, clearing the way for two further groups of negotiating chapters to be opened before a European Council summit on October 15.
Prime Minister Péter Magyar has instructed Hungarian diplomats not to obstruct the Irish presidency of the Council of the European Union when it writes to Kyiv and Chișinău asking for their negotiating positions, the Financial Times reported. The clusters at stake cover the internal market and competitiveness.
Member state officials were due to take up the question at the Council’s enlargement working party on October 6, with a formal decision expected on October 13.
Budapest’s final word rests on the Verkhovna Rada, which plans an extraordinary sitting on October 12 to pass a bill on minority-language schooling. Hungarian consent is conditional on that vote.
The bill, registered in Kyiv on October 1, would create a national minority school status for institutions where more than half of pupils are taught in a minority language that is also an official EU language, according to Ukrinform. The education ministry estimates that about 149 schools qualify, some 1.2 per cent of Ukraine’s general secondary institutions.
Ukrainian would remain the language of instruction and Russian would not return to classrooms. Magyar said the text strengthened guarantees for Hungarian-language education and that he expected those rights to be honoured in practice.
The dispute concerns the roughly 100,000 ethnic Hungarians of Transcarpathia, in western Ukraine. It has shaped Budapest’s handling of Kyiv’s membership bid since former prime minister Viktor Orbán imposed a veto that froze the process for two years.
Magyar lifted that veto in June after striking a minority rights deal with Kyiv, and the first cluster, on fundamentals, was opened on June 15. A second, on external relations, followed on July 14, leaving four still shut.
Budapest then blocked the screening results needed for the remaining clusters in September, demanding that Ukraine’s minority action plan reflect what the two governments had agreed bilaterally.
The veto on membership itself has not disappeared. Magyar told a press conference on September 3 that Ukraine was not ready for the bloc, ruled out any accelerated procedure and promised a legally binding referendum should Kyiv close all 33 chapters within 10 to 15 years.
Accession requires unanimity at some 150 separate points, leaving Hungary ample opportunity to halt the process later. Moldova’s bid remains tied to Ukraine’s under the package approach, leaving Chișinău dependent on a quarrel in which it plays no part.
