Hungary ended its two-year blockade of Ukraine’s European Union membership bid Wednesday after Prime Minister Péter Magyar announced a deal with Kyiv on minority rights, clearing the path for Ukraine and Moldova to open the first formal cluster of accession negotiations.
The country’s ambassador to the EU delivered the pivot during a routine meeting in Brussels, catching diplomats off guard and triggering a last-minute addition to the formal agenda. The EU Council sent a letter to Ukraine and Moldova confirming readiness to open the first cluster. EU governments plan to hold the intergovernmental conference formally launching the process on June 15 in Luxembourg, on the sidelines of an EU foreign ministers meeting.
Magyar announced the breakthrough on Facebook, saying Hungary and Ukraine had reached a “comprehensive agreement” covering minority protections for roughly 100,000 ethnic Hungarians in Ukraine’s Transcarpathia region — spanning language use, schooling, cultural expression, and political participation. Ukraine pledged to enshrine the agreed measures in domestic law and reflect them in its EU accession action plan.
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Former Prime Minister Viktor Orbán imposed the veto in mid-2024 just as Hungary assumed the rotating EU Council presidency, freezing both Ukraine and Moldova at the starting line of a process that requires unanimity at every step. Magyar — a pro-European conservative who swept Orbán from power in a landslide election victory and was sworn in on May 9 — had privately signaled openness to lifting it following weeks of expert-level talks between the two countries.
The first cluster, known as fundamentals, covers rule of law, human rights, and the judiciary. It is both the first to open and the last to close in the accession process, which spans 33 chapters divided into six thematic clusters.
EU Enlargement Commissioner Marta Kos said both countries had already demonstrated progress on rule of law and called on the EU to “accelerate” their path to membership. Ireland’s Foreign Affairs Minister Helen McEntee called the ambassadors’ decision a “historic milestone.”
Hungary could still reimpose a veto at any time, though Brussels diplomats say they expect the June 15 conference to proceed without incident. Magyar also reiterated his opposition to fast-track accession, a position shared by several other member states, and tied Hungary’s ultimate consent to a referendum — promising a legally binding national vote if Kyiv closes all 33 chapters, a process he put at “10 or 15 years.”
Separately, Hungary also lifted its block on the European Peace Facility, releasing over €40 billion owed to member states that drew down their own weapons inventories to arm Ukraine.
The opening of the first cluster marks the start, not the end, of a process most analysts expect to take at least a decade.
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