Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban has suggested the European Union’s plans to initiate negotiations for Ukraine’s accession to the bloc this year are going nowhere, due to longstanding issues with Ukraine’s repression of its Hungarian minority and the fact it is actively at war.
Orban said it is unrealistic to begin the accession process with a warring Ukraine, not least because the full extent of its effective territory is impossible to determine.
Importantly, the EU has a mutual defense clause, similar to but slightly vaguer than the NATO mutual defense clause, which raises the prospect of European Union member-states being obliged to join the war on Ukraine’s side – without America – if it enters the bloc.
Orban explained that Hungary’s parliament would need to approve Ukrainian EU membership, and he did not feel a strong desire within the chamber to do so within the next two years, as long and difficult questions still need to be answered.
Hungary’s skepticism towards Ukraine’s EU membership is rooted in the rights of the ethnic Hungarian minority in the Transcarpathia region of western Ukraine; a product of multiple border shifts throughout the 20th century.
Like the ethnic Russian population in Ukraine, they have been subjected to what the Hungarian government regards as poor treatment, with restrictions imposed on their native language being used in schools, and Hungarians harassed and even arrested by the secret services for such transgressions as singing the Hungarian anthem at cultural events.
Orbán’s government recently announced it will not support Ukraine on any international issue until the language rights of the Hungarian minority are restored.
