BRUSSELS: The European Union will resume membership talks with Ukraine on Monday, the bloc has announced, after Hungary lifted the veto previously imposed by its former leader.
“All member states agreed to open the first accession negotiations cluster with Ukraine and Moldova,” European Council President Antonio Costa and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said in a joint social media post on Friday.
The announcement came after Hungary’s new government agreed to drop its predecessor’s longstanding veto against Kyiv. That veto was put in place by former nationalist prime minister Viktor Orban, who was ousted in an election in April.
New Hungarian Prime Minister Peter Magyar dropped the objection after striking a deal with Kyiv on the rights of Ukraine’s Hungarian ethnic minority, which had long strained ties between the neighbours.
Entry negotiations with Kyiv were formally opened in June 2024, but Orban’s government had blocked concrete progress. The move is largely symbolic but intended as a powerful show of support for Ukraine following Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022.
“Ukraine is defending itself and, in doing so, all of Europe,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said after the EU announcement.
However, Magyar cautioned that Hungary does not support a fast-track procedure. He said the country would hold a referendum on Ukraine’s membership should it succeed in closing all 33 accession chapters within the next 10 to 15 years.
Talks will begin on Monday with the opening of the “fundamentals” section of the process, covering basic principles such as rule of law.
