Ukraine’s EU accession talks put on hold after Hungary vetoes bloc’s enlargement statement

Hungary has vetoed the European Union’s annual joint statement on enlargement, effectively preventing the bloc from formally beginning accession talks with Ukraine, the Russian service of German public broadcaster Deutsche Welle (DW) reported on Tuesday.

According to officials from Denmark, which currently holds the EU’s rotating presidency, Hungary was the sole country to reject an assessment that Ukraine had made progress towards meeting the EU’s eligibility criteria for membership over the past year.

“Ukraine is fulfilling its promises,” Denmark’s Europe Minister Marie Bjerre said, noting that the other 26 countries in the EU were “demonstrating strong support for Ukraine”, according to DW. 

As well as praising Kyiv’s progress, the EU’s annual enlargement statement noted that Montenegro was the most advanced candidate in the accession process and confirmed that the country was on track to conclude negotiations by the end of 2026, with Albania expected to follow by the end of 2027.

With Budapest’s veto, the formal opening of accession negotiations between Kyiv and Brussels will now be delayed, despite the repeated assurances made by senior European leaders that Ukraine’s future lies within the European Union.

On Tuesday, European Council President António Costa and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen joined 11 European countries in affirming their “strong support” for Ukraine’s future EU membership. 

Despite Hungary’s efforts to prevent the start of negotiations, Ukraine will continue to receive informal guidance from EU officials on its accession reforms under a special dispensation, Euronews reported last week.

Kyiv has been presented with a 10-point to-do list aimed at speeding up its internal transformation, and will receive continued technical recommendations to help this process, EU Enlargement Commissioner Marta Kos announced on Friday. “At some point, we will have to find unanimity,” Kos said. “But for the time being, for the technical part, we can go on.” 

“This means that Ukraine is being given specific instructions on how exactly it should implement reforms, what it should achieve, and what outcomes the majority of member states expect,” Bjerre added on Tuesday.

The European Commission will apply the same approach to Ukraine’s neighbour Moldova, whose membership bid has also been stalled by internal EU deadlock, Euronews reported.

Hungary, which has long been the leading critic of Ukraine within the EU, has repeatedly opposed allowing Ukraine to join the bloc while the country is at war with Russia. In late October, a senior Hungarian official announced that Budapest was planning to form a “Ukraine-sceptic alliance” within the EU with the objective of blocking European financial and military aid being given to Kyiv.