Summer Break in the EU: No New Clusters on Ukraine and Moldova's Accession Will Be Launched Before September

An EU official told Suspilne about this.

At a meeting of the working group on EU enlargement, no consensus was reached due to Budapest’s position. Therefore, further consideration will be postponed until after the summer break, in September.

According to UP, Hungary has also blocked the second cluster.

Prime Minister Péter Magyar previously stated that Ukraine’s accelerated EU membership “would be unfair” to the countries of the Western Balkans. According to him, the Hungarian government is not the only one that disagrees with opening other clusters.

On July 14, at the Ukraine–EU Intergovernmental Conference, the sixth cluster (“External Relations”) was officially opened. It covers common trade policy, humanitarian aid, and the development and alignment of positions with the EU’s Common Foreign and Security Policy, including sanctions and arms exports.

The clusters are not opened sequentially—it depends on the progress of reforms in the candidate country.

As a reminder, Hungary has unblocked the first step toward opening the sixth cluster of negotiations on Ukraine’s accession to the EU.

Earlier, “Shelter” explained what a negotiation cluster is, when it can actually be opened, and which EU member states might oppose it. In particular, we wrote that there are clear requirements for each cluster—opening benchmarks, interim benchmarks, and closing benchmarks.