Hungary and Ukraine Reach Agreement on Ethnic Hungarian Minority Rights

Hungary and Ukraine on Wednesday reached an agreement on the rights of Ukraine's ethnic Hungarian minority, an issue that has long strained relations between the two countries.

The deal will boost Ukraine's longstanding bid to join the EU, with Budapest saying it would drop a veto by former Prime Minister Viktor Orban on Kyiv's accession to the bloc if an agreement were reached.

Kyiv has been pressing to be allowed to join the EU partly to bolster its security as it fights against the full-scale Russian invasion launched in 2022.

What do we know about the minority rights deal?

Hungarian Prime Minister Peter Magyar said on X that the "historic agreement" would improve rights for the more than 100,000 ethnic Hungarians living in Ukraine's western Transcarpathia region.

He said his government had needed just three weeks of negotiations to achieve the deal.

"In just three weeks, we have achieved what [former Prime Minister] Viktor Orban and his government failed to achieve in 10 years," he wrote late on Wednesday.

He said the deal would improve educational, linguistic, cultural and political rights for the minority.

Magyar said Ukraine had agreed to implement the changes in law and incorporate them into its minority action plan submitted to the EU.

After Orban's ouster in April, Magyar said Budapest wanted Ukraine to amend its minority action plan as a precondition to giving consent "to the opening of the first accession cluster in Ukraine's EU membership negotiations."

What does this mean for Kyiv's EU accession bid?

The EU has now said it will move Ukraine, along with Moldova, to the next stage in their membership bids as it hailed the deal announced by Magyar.

"This marks a significant milestone in their European integration path, and sends a strong message of EU unity and determination," Cyprus, which holds the bloc's rotating presidency, said in a social media post.

Marta Kos, the EU's enlargement chief, said the deal "opens the way for progress on the EU accession path of Ukraine."

"This will allow Member States to take forward the work on opening the first negotiation cluster with Ukraine and Moldova," she wrote on X.

The first negotiating cluster focuses on fundamental issues including the rule of law, judicial reform and public administration standards.

The EU formally opened entry negotiations with Ukraine back in June 2024, but this was a largely symbolic move, with any further steps toward Kyiv's accession blocked by Orban's veto.

Budapest still opposed to fast-tracked accession

However, Magyar said his country still opposed a fast-tracked Ukrainian accession process.

He said Budapest would support Ukraine's membership if it completed all 33 accession chapters over the next 10 to 15 years and if the move received backing in a legally binding referendum in Hungary.

The EU accession process is usually long and highly complicated and requires countries to fulfil a multitude of legal and economic requirements to become a member.

Edited by: Dmytro Hubenko