The price of EU membership: What Hungary demands from Ukraine for its minority in Zakarpattia

"Shelter" investigated what Budapest is demanding for the Hungarian minority in Zakarpattia and what remains a stumbling block in relations between the two countries.

Blocking the Negotiation Clusters

On July 17, during a meeting of the EU Council’s Working Group on Enlargement, Hungary refused to give the green light to opening negotiation clusters No. 2 and No. 3 for Ukraine. At the same time, Budapest supported the opening of cluster No. 3 for Moldova. 

Other EU member states opposed separating Ukraine and Moldova, which had until then been moving forward side by side in the negotiation process. As a result, consideration of the issue was postponed until July 22.  

But the next meeting also failed to yield any progress. Hungary again refused to approve the screening results for Clusters 2 and 3 for Kyiv. The discussion was postponed until September, but no consensus was reached during the fall meetings. 

As of September, Ukraine had opened two negotiation clusters with the EU. These are the most important Cluster No. 1, “Foundations,” and Cluster No. 6, “External Relations.” 

For several months now, Ukrainian officials have been making optimistic predictions about opening the clusters, which have not materialized. The plan was to open all clusters by July, but in practice, the process stalled as early as Clusters No. 2, “Internal Market,” and No. 3, “Competitiveness and Inclusive Growth.” 

And this is despite the fact that the process has not even reached Clusters No. 4, “Green Agenda,” and No. 5, “Agriculture”—which are the most challenging for Kyiv. It’s also worth noting that the clusters are only just being launched—this is just the beginning of the journey. Ahead lie reforms that could take years, followed by the process of closing the clusters. So what can we expect next?

The Long-Standing Issue of National Minorities 

The new Deputy Prime Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration, Vsevolod Chentsov, explained that the issue of national minorities remains the key reason for Hungary’s blocking of the negotiations.

At the same time, he assured that Ukraine has fulfilled all the necessary conditions for opening the second and third negotiation clusters. The issue of national minorities pertains to the first negotiation cluster, which Ukraine has already opened, so Budapest’s blockade appears unfounded.

It is important to recall that Hungary agreed to lift its block on opening the first cluster only after the Ukrainian government, on June 12, approved and submitted to Brussels an updated plan for the protection of national minorities in a version agreed upon with EU member states. 

Therefore, Budapest should withdraw its objections to Ukraine’s European integration. However, Hungary’s opposition has a long history: the government of former Prime Minister Viktor Orbán artificially blocked the opening of the clusters for 17 months. The change in the country’s leadership has not fundamentally altered the situation—the new government has also made it clear that minority rights remain an absolute priority for Budapest. 

Hungary’s current Prime Minister, Péter Magyar, warned: “If Ukraine fails to fulfill its obligations regarding the rights of the Hungarian minority within the established deadlines, it will not be able to move forward in the EU accession process.” 

In addition, he stated that Ukraine “is not ready to join the European Union,” and that its path to membership must be based on general principles—without any exceptions or fast-track procedures.

It appears that most of the Ukrainian-Hungarian disagreements could be resolved through a face-to-face meeting between Magyar and Zelenskyy. Georgiy Tykhyi, spokesperson for the Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, told “Shelter” during a press conference on September 8 that a meeting between the two leaders could take place in the near future. 

Tykhyi explained that Ukraine had submitted a new proposal to Hungary regarding when and where Zelenskyy and Magyar could meet.

What is Budapest demanding? 

Tykhyi also commented on Hungary’s blocking of the negotiation clusters. From his remarks, it became clear that Budapest has not even outlined its demands to Kyiv for reopening them.

The Foreign Ministry spokesperson recalled that three rounds of Ukrainian-Hungarian expert consultations took place in May and June. These consultations resulted in the approval of an updated “Action Plan for the Protection of the Rights of Persons Belonging to National Minorities (Communities) in Ukraine.”

This document is publicly available. The plan consists of nine strategic goals, the implementation of which largely requires amendments to Ukrainian legislation.

The provisions of the agreed-upon plan clearly show exactly what Budapest wants for the Hungarian minority in Zakarpattia.

• In education: it calls for the restoration of the official status of “national minority schools” for institutions where instruction is conducted in the community’s language; the right of graduates to take the National Multidisciplinary Test (NMT) and entrance exams in Hungarian; and the use of two languages in school documentation.  
• Regarding elections: it insists on guaranteed quotas or mechanisms for minority representatives to be elected to the Verkhovna Rada, as well as the right to freely conduct campaign activities in the minority language.  
• In urban spaces: requests permission to restore the historical (Hungarian) names of settlements and streets, as well as to provide Hungarian-language duplicates of signs, road signs, and public inscriptions. 
• Regarding national symbols: it seeks explicit legal authorization to freely use national symbols—to display the Hungarian tricolor, use the coat of arms, and perform the national anthem at public events and holidays.  
• In the protection of rights and the fight against discrimination: it demands strict punishment for any manifestations of ethnic intolerance and the clear criminalization of hate speech against minorities.

In particular, the document calls for the adoption of a resolution condemning the crimes committed by the Russian Empire and the Stalinist regime against national minorities and the indigenous peoples of Ukraine. The Ukrainian parliament has already taken a significant step in this direction. 

On September 3, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine became the first in the world to recognize the Soviet repressions against Hungarians in Transcarpathia in 1944–1946 as a crime. At that time, units of the NKVD and SMERSH deported thousands of Transcarpathian Hungarian civilians to Gulag camps without trial; most of them did not survive the starvation, disease, and inhumane conditions of exile.

For its part, the Hungarian Parliament welcomed the Verkhovna Rada’s decision but called for the full and prompt implementation of the June agreement on minority rights.

What are the differences between the parties? 

Yulia Grishina, a member of parliament and co-chair of the group on interparliamentary relations with Hungary, told “Shelter” that the issue of national minorities has been—and will remain for many years to come—a crucial one between Kyiv and Budapest.

The reason for this intransigence lies in Hungary’s political system itself, where minorities have historically enjoyed broad rights and state funding—ranging from their own schools and churches to self-government and guaranteed seats in parliament, and the protection of compatriots abroad is explicitly enshrined in the country’s Constitution.

Grishina emphasized that the parties have been working for a long time on the demands put forward by Hungary. Most of them concern the level of subordinate legislation; however, Budapest insists specifically on the level of law to prevent any changes at the local level.

The main stumbling block remains the demand to guarantee minorities direct representation in government bodies and to create special electoral districts for this purpose, modeled after the Hungarian system.

Many of the demands concern the education sector. Specifically, they concern the restoration, at the legislative level, of the official status of “national minority schools” and the use of national symbols. Although these institutions currently enjoy broad autonomy, the Hungarian side is seeking clear legislative guarantees against any future curtailment of their rights. Regarding flags and anthems in schools, according to Hryshyna, a compromise has already been reached in the draft, drawing on the mirror experience of Ukrainian schools in Hungary.

She noted that Ukraine has already taken significant steps toward this: the language of instruction has been restored, and more than 90 Hungarian schools are fully operational and funded from the state budget. 

In Grishina’s view, there are “a great many fabricated problems” in Ukrainian-Hungarian relations.

The government is now in the final stages of preparing a framework bill based on the results of this summer’s government agreements, but the most difficult stage lies ahead.