BUDAPEST, June 18. /TASS/. Hungary anticipates that talks on Ukraine’s accession to the European Union may begin in June, since a relevant political decision has already been made, Hungarian Minister for EU Affairs Janos Boka said.

"I think that the final political decision on the talks with Ukraine was made late last week. This means that an intergovernmental conference with Ukraine’s participation may be held at a meeting of the European Council on June 27 and 28 and after that, during Hungary’s presidency, the process of Ukraine’s admission to the European Union will proceed under a regular procedure," he said, adding that Ukraine will continue to be monitored on how it is implementing the requirements.

Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said on June 15 that the European Union had satisfied conditions set by Hungary before beginning admission talks with Ukraine. According to the top Hungarian diplomat, these conditions, which concern the rights of the Hungarian minority in Ukraine, were included in the framework document. "We have a document from Brussels which binds Ukraine to reinstate rights Hungarians in the Trans-Carpathian region have been deprived of in recent years," he said.

Hungary’s demands

Hungary has been insisting that Ukraine ensure the rights of the Hungarian minority in the Trans-Carpathian region as one of the criteria to be taken into account before launching talks on that country’s admission to the European Union. Budapest demands that Ukraine restores the rights of ethnic Hungarians as they were before 2015 and warns that it would not support Kiev’s EU-ward aspirations otherwise. In January, the sides set up a working group to address these matters.

Now, Hungary has removed its objections to the beginning of talks with Ukraine but stressed that this doesn’t mean its automatic consent to Ukraine’s membership in the EU. According to Budapest, admission talks are a long process, which may take years, and its outcome will depend on how Ukraine implements membership requirements.

In June 2022, Ukraine, as well as Moldova, another post-Soviet republic, were granted the status of candidates for EU members. In November 2023, the European Commission recommended that membership talks be kicked off with these countries. However, the EU summit in March 2024 only hailed the countries’ progress on their path to EU membership but did not set any timeframes for the talks.

Meanwhile, Belgium’s presidency of the EU Council announced on June 14, 2024 that admission talks with Moldova and Ukraine would begin on June 25.