BUDAPEST, January 29. /TASS/. Hungary doesn’t want any special treatment for the Hungarian minority in Ukraine, only that they get back the rights they used to have before 2015, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said.

"I would like to point out that Hungary’s government has never asked for any rights for Transcarpathian Hungarians, which did not exist before 2015," he said at a meeting with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmiitry Kuleba and presidential office chief Andrey Yermak in Uzhgorod, in Ukraine’s Transcarpathian Region.

"We want to address this request to you, which, when implemented, will make it possible to return the situation with [Hungarians’] rights to what it was before 2015," he said.

Budapest demands that Kiev restore the rights of the Hungarian minority in Transcarpathia, warning that otherwise it will not support Ukraine’s bid to enter the EU. On December 8, 2023, Ukraine’s Verkhovna Rada (national parliament) passed a law on the rights of national minorities, which took into account recommendations from the Venice Commission. The law lifts a number of language restrictions on ethnic minorities speaking official languages of the European Union. The Hungarian government has promised to keep a close eye on the implementation of this law.