Accession to EU: Ukraine negotiates with Hungary and Romania over disputed language issue

This was reported by the Financial Times.

This issue is the main potential obstacle to the start of formal negotiations on Ukraine's accession to the EU. The bloc's leaders are due to decide in December whether to start negotiations, but Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has often threatened to veto the process over minority rights issues, accusing Kyiv of "Hungarophobia".

Ukraine has about 80,000 ethnic Hungarians in the Zakarpattia region, and protecting their rights is one of the seven reform criteria the EU requires before it can begin negotiations on our membership.

According to Stefanishyna, this week Kyiv will start bilateral talks with Hungary and Romania to achieve a balance between education in Ukrainian and minority languages in secondary schools.

"We will amend the legislation on national minorities and we can put additional amendments [into law] if needed, but we need to have the [bilateral] negotiations first," Stefanishyna said.

The deputy prime minister noted that Ukrainians of ethnic minorities need to learn the language sufficiently to be able to obtain higher education or employment outside of the minority community. She added that the current rules that have made Ukrainian language teaching more compulsory have worked well.

Reports suggest that Orban, who has close relations with Moscow, may use the education issue as a pretext to prevent Ukraine from starting EU accession talks in December. The Venice Commission, the Council of Europe's expert body on constitutional law, also demands that Ukraine protect the language rights of Russian speakers.

What is known about Ukraine's accession to the EU

Ukraine applied for EU membership on 28 February 2022 during the Russian-Ukrainian war. 

On June 23, 2022, Ukraine was granted candidate status for EU membership.

In May, Ukraine’s Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said that Ukraine should be ready to join the EU in two years - the country expects to receive a political decision to start accession negotiations this year.

According to Espreso's sources, the European Parliament is considering the possibility of starting negotiations on Ukraine's accession to the EU this fall.

However, on August 17, Deputy Prime Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration Olha Stefanishyna said that Ukraine would not be able to implement all 7 EU recommendations by October, as these are changes that have been implemented over the years.

Maria Mezentseva, Deputy Head of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Ukraine's Integration with the EU, Head of the Permanent Delegation to PACE, noted that it is necessary to wait for the October report of the European Commission on the implementation of 7 EU recommendations by Ukraine

On August 28, European Council President Charles Michel said that the European Union should be ready to accept new member states by 2030. The EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Josep Borrell, expressed support for setting a tentative ‘time target’ for new members to join the EU.

On September 8, Lithuanian President Gitanas Nausėda said it was important that negotiations on Ukraine's accession to the EU begin by the end of this year. A clear European perspective will inspire Ukrainians on the battlefield.