Hungary blocked a step toward opening Ukraine’s last two EU negotiating clusters on Tuesday, Oct. 20, European Pravda reported, a week after Budapest lifted objections that had held up other parts of Kyiv’s membership bid.
Citing several EU diplomats familiar with the discussions, the outlet reported that Hungary refused to approve screening results for Clusters 4 and 5 at a meeting of the Council of the EU’s enlargement working party in Brussels.
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The diplomats did not specify what arguments Hungary’s representative gave for withholding approval.
Ukraine has already opened four of the six negotiating clusters. The remaining two cover areas including energy, transport, environmental policy and agriculture.
What Hungary is holding up
Cluster 4, known as “Green agenda and sustainable connectivity,” covers transport, energy, trans-European networks, the environment and climate change.
Cluster 5, “Resources, agriculture and cohesion,” includes agriculture, food safety, veterinary and plant-health rules, fisheries, regional policy and financial and budgetary provisions.
The objection concerns approval of screening results, a preliminary step toward opening negotiations in those policy areas. Opening a cluster requires agreement among all 27 EU member states.
The EU formally opened Cluster 2 and Cluster 3, covering the internal market and competitiveness and inclusive growth, on Oct. 13. Talks on the fundamentals cluster began in June, followed by external relations in July.
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A setback after last week’s reset
The reported objection comes days after Ukrainian officials expressed optimism that a longstanding dispute with Budapest had been resolved.
“We can say that we have indeed turned this page,” Deputy Prime Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration Vsevolod Chentsov said in an interview published by European Pravda on Oct. 19.
He said Kyiv expected to open the remaining two clusters and saw no major problems arising from its roadmap on minority rights. The interview took place after last week’s EU summit, before Tuesday’s reported objection.
President Volodymyr Zelensky and Hungarian Prime Minister Péter Magyar met in Brussels on Oct. 16 and agreed to rebuild political and economic relations. The planned cooperation includes trade, border infrastructure, business contacts and ties between the two countries’ citizens.
That diplomatic reset followed Ukraine’s adoption of education amendments on Oct. 12, which met Hungary’s condition for advancing the internal-market and competitiveness talks. Zelensky signed the legislation the same day.
The law expands education rights for national minorities whose languages are official EU languages. It introduces a special status for qualifying secondary schools where more than half of the students study in such a minority language.
Verkhovna Rada estimates indicated that 149 schools could qualify. Ukrainian remains the primary state language of education, and the new provisions do not extend to Russian.
Hungary had repeatedly linked progress in Ukraine’s EU accession negotiations to the education and language rights of its ethnic Hungarian minority, concentrated in the western Zakarpattia region.
Kyiv still targets year-end progress
Ireland, which holds the rotating presidency of the Council of the EU, has said it aims to open Ukraine’s remaining clusters before the end of 2026.
“The presidency’s ambitious goal is to open the remaining clusters,” Irish Minister of State for European Affairs and Defense Thomas Byrne said on Oct. 13.
However, language urging the remaining clusters to be opened “as soon as possible” was removed from draft conclusions ahead of the Oct. 15-16 European Council summit.
The European Council’s published summit summary welcomed the opening of Clusters 2 and 3 and looked forward to opening the remaining clusters according to Ukraine’s progress, without setting a deadline.
Opening all six clusters would expand the negotiations to the remaining policy areas. Ukraine would still need to meet the requirements for closing the chapters, while the EU continues to assess its alignment with European rules and their implementation.
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