Magyar: Ukraine must take specific steps towards upholding rights of Hungarian community in Transcarpathia

Ukraine must take specific steps towards upholding the rights of the Hungarian community in Transcarpathia in order for Hungary to support the opening of additional EU accession clusters, Prime Minister Péter Magyar said on Thursday in Bratislava in response to a question from Telex.

The Prime Minister held a press conference following the V4 summit, during which he also discussed developments in Hungarian-Ukrainian relations. According to MTI's report, Magyar said that the Hungarian and Ukrainian governments reached a political agreement in June concerning the educational, cultural, linguistic, and administrative rights of Hungarians in Transcarpathia; but the specific measures agreed upon have not yet been implemented. He added that the Tisza Party supported the opening of the first and sixth chapters in Ukraine’s EU accession negotiations, but only considers the opening of additional chapters justified within the framework of a performance-based accession process.

The Hungarian Prime Minister pointed to Serbia as an example: although the country began the accession process 12 years ago, only two of the six clusters have been opened for them. Magyar noted that there are nearly 300,000 Hungarians living in Serbia, many of whom travel to Hungary to work or study and often spend hours waiting in line at the Schengen border. In his view, this is one reason—“and secondly, to be honest, it’s not fair that everyone is now demanding we open the clusters to Ukraine, while there has been no progress in the negotiations on either the first or the sixth cluster.”

According to Péter Magyar, it would be unfair if Ukraine were to make faster progress toward EU accession than candidate countries which have been working on meeting the criteria for many years. “This is a process that takes many years, and it is by no means certain that it will be successful in the end,” he said. When asked by Telex whether he plans to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in the near future, he replied that he is not ruling anything out.

The Prime Minister also mentioned at the press conference that there has been no progress yet on the issue of the Beneš Decrees with Slovakia. He said that he is confident that progress will soon be made between Hungary and Slovakia on this matter. He had previously agreed with Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico—and they discussed this again this week—that these issues should be prepared at the expert level, but this has not yet happened. Magyar said that he is confident the Slovak Prime Minister also has an interest in finding solutions to these issues.

He added that it is absolutely clear that they cannot make progress at the bilateral level until there is at least some progress on the issue of land being taken by the state without compensation and the threat of imprisonment for expressing one’s opinion.

According to the Prime Minister, there is greater potential for strengthening cooperation among Central European countries than has been utilized so far. Magyar highlighted the development of north-south transportation links, such as the high-speed rail project connecting Warsaw–Prague–Bratislava–Budapest—which could even extend to Vienna—as well as opportunities for cooperation in the energy sector, the defense industry, digitalization, healthcare, agriculture, and the food industry. According to the Hungarian PM, the V4 countries could serve as a strong base for Central Europe, to which other countries—including Austria, Romania, and the Balkan states—could later join.