Today at 16:32
On May 29, Hungary rejected the idea of conducting accession talks with Ukraine in June at a meeting of EU ambassadors.
This was reported by Rikard Jozwiak, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty editor.
Hungary denied EU accession talks to Ukraine but not Moldova. The Hungarian ambassador argues that the government of Ukraine doesn’t follow all 11 bilateral points on national minorities in Ukraine.
“The idea is still to formally open the accession talks at the end of June but unanimity needed,” Jozwiak stated.
The European Union sees the integration of Ukraine and Moldova should happen simultaneously, so until the progress on Ukraine is absent, there will be no decision on Moldova either.
It should be noted that Hungary’s six-month presidency of the EU Council begins in July, and it probably would like to use its presidency to impede Ukraine’s eurointegration. Hence, it is a common knowledge the EU wants to start accession talks in June while Belgium presides in the EU Council.
In January, Péter Szijjártó, Hungarian Foreign Minister, presented an 11-point list of requests to Ukraine that included restoring the status of schools for Hungarian ethnic minorities, the opportunity to arrange final exams at school in Hungarian, as well as the unrestrained use of Hungarian in higher education, culture, public services and community life.
Earlier, Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski revealed that Hungary was blocking “almost half of all EU decisions regarding Ukraine.
