Hungary has set a price for Ukraine’s further progress toward EU membership: parliament must pass laws protecting ethnic Hungarians in Transcarpathia. Budapest and Kyiv are now close to a deal. Kyiv is preparing legislation on minority education rights, and the Verkhovna Rada is expected to vote in October.
Hungary has blocked further movement in the accession talks until Ukraine adopts the laws agreed under an 11-point plan. The deadline falls at the end of the year.
A Veto With Conditions
The dispute goes back years. Under Viktor Orbán, Hungary’s government repeatedly clashed with Kyiv and blocked Ukraine’s progress toward EU membership. His successor, Péter Magyar, took office in May, five months ago, and has tried to repair relations.
In June, four months ago, the two countries agreed on the 11-point plan to strengthen minority rights. Hungary then allowed two negotiating clusters to open in Ukraine’s accession talks. Since then, Budapest has insisted that promises aren’t enough. The Rada must pass the required legislation.
Hungarian Foreign Minister Anita Orbán wrote on social media that Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Vsevolod Chsentsov had “personally informed me that a bill on the educational rights of national minorities will be submitted to the Ukrainian parliament. We welcome this step.” She added: “Hungary remains interested in the dialogue and in tangible results in the everyday life of the Hungarian community in Transcarpathia.”
Kyiv hasn’t officially commented on the latest developments. Ukrainian outlet LIGA.net reported that experts from both countries held intensive talks this week and agreed on which parts of the 11-point plan Kyiv could deliver.
Friction Beneath the Progress
The breakthrough follows another row. Two weeks earlier, Magyar and Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha clashed over President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s C8 regional development initiative. Magyar said Hungary had been included against its will. Sybiha accused him of following in Orbán’s footsteps. A bill covering language and cultural rights is due before the Rada later in October.
Magyar and Zelenskyy had planned to meet. But Magyar made the talks conditional on progress over minority rights.
Hungarian public opinion complicates the picture. Conservative voters remain wary of closer ties with Kyiv after years of hostility toward Ukraine under Orbán. Defending ethnic Hungarians abroad, though, remains popular among conservatives, and that could give Magyar room to reach a deal.
The Rada Test
Dániel Hegedűs, deputy director of the Institut für Europäische Politik, told Euronews the move could reverse recent negative trends in bilateral relations. He also warned that the Rada could pose an obstacle. “Given the absence of stable majorities in the Verkhovna Rada, passing the legislation in October is an ambitious goal and a real test of whether the Ukrainian administration can regain political control over issues of strategic importance to the country's EU integration,” he said.
If Ukraine passes the package, Hungary could lift its veto on opening more chapters. Hegedűs said: “It remains to be seen whether passage of the law will secure Hungary's support for opening all negotiation clusters or only for some of them.” He added that in the most positive scenario, passage and Hungarian support for all clusters “could mark a new era in relations between the two countries.” Approval, he said, “would make Budapest's continuation of its blockade harder to sustain and significantly more costly politically at the European level.”
Why This Matters: Enlargement runs on unanimity, and this case shows what that means in practice. A single member state can set conditions on a candidate—here, concrete legal protections for a minority—before talks advance. From a sovereignty perspective, the episode shows national governments using the accession process to secure commitments for their own citizens abroad. The outcome carries political risk, too. If the Rada can’t deliver by year-end, the talks could stall again. If it does deliver, Budapest will find a continued blockade harder to defend in Europe. Either way, the result will show whether candidate countries can turn negotiated promises into law on schedule.