Ukraine Says Hungary Hasn’t Stopped Talks

Hungary has not raised any new substantive objections to Ukraine’s European Union accession talks, Ukraine’s new ambassador to the bloc, Taras Kachka, told Euronews, pushing back on the language of “blocking” at a delicate point in the enlargement process.

That matters because reports cited by Euronews said Hungary withheld approval of screening results for the remaining two negotiating clusters at EU Council working group meetings on October 20 and 27. In Brussels, a procedural hold can feel like a political message even when someone insists it is only a request for more reading time. Kachka’s argument is that, in this case, the delay should be read literally: Budapest wants to examine several hundred pages of documents before the next step.

He also said a long-running dispute over minority education rights, one of the sharpest points of tension between Kyiv and Budapest, had been resolved. Ukraine amended its minority education legislation in October, Euronews reported, a move meant to clear the way for two more clusters to open and bring the total to four out of six. Kachka said the amended rules were already being implemented in Ukrainian schools.

What is established here is narrower than the headline fight over who is obstructing whom. Hungary had previously objected to parts of Ukraine’s accession path, especially over minority rights. It also lifted objections to two other clusters earlier in October, according to Euronews. What is not established from this account is whether the current pause will remain technical. In EU politics, timing is substance often enough that member states learn to hide one inside the other.

Kachka nonetheless sounded confident that the final two clusters could open before the end of the year, and he kept Kyiv’s broader timetable intact: completing accession negotiations in 2027 or 2028, possibly faster if domestic reforms move more quickly. That is an ambitious schedule under any circumstances. Under wartime conditions, it is also a measure of how Ukraine wants to anchor itself politically while it is still under military attack.

He rejected suggestions that legislative delays in Ukraine amount to a deliberate slowdown, saying lawmaking has been complicated by the conditions of war, including interruptions to parliamentary work. He told Euronews that cooperation between the government and parliament had improved and that he expected the pace of reform to pick up.

Kachka also dismissed associate membership as an alternative to full EU accession. That is not a technical footnote. It is a statement about status and permanence. Countries at war, or living beside one, tend to hear “intermediate arrangement” less as flexibility than as a waiting room.

One of the hardest chapters still ahead is agriculture. Kachka acknowledged that it will be among the most sensitive areas of negotiation but argued that lengthy transitional restrictions on Ukrainian farm products should not be necessary, aside from possible arrangements for especially sensitive goods such as wheat. That debate is unlikely to stay confined to trade paperwork; it reaches directly into how existing EU farmers imagine the costs of enlargement.

For now, the most important shift in this story is smaller and more fragile than a breakthrough. Ukraine is trying to recast the immediate problem not as a member state slamming the door, but as a dossier still being read.