Hungary supports Ukraine's accelerated accession to EU

Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó called for Ukraine's accelerated accession to the European Union.

According to Evropeyska Pravda (European Truth), this was reported by 444.hu, which showed a video message from the minister.

Yesterday, the presidents of eight EU member-states — the three Baltic states, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Bulgaria and Slovenia — made a joint initiative to promote Ukraine's European integration in order to give Ukraine the status of a country-candidate and to start accession negotiations as soon as possible. "I would like to announce that Hungary supports this initiative, and we urge Brussels to put the issue on the agenda," Foreign Minister Siyarto said.

He also said that Hungary supports any initiatives aimed at ending the war. "The sooner there is peace, the fewer people will die and will be forced to flee their homes," the Hungarian foreign minister said.

It should be noted that Budapest's policy from 2017, which is still its official policy, states that Hungary will not support decisions leading to Ukraine's accession to the EU.

As a reminder, after Russia's invasion of Ukraine, several EU countries called for granting Ukraine a pathway to EU membership, and Slovakia proposed the creation of a special procedure for Ukraine's accession to the EU.

On 28 February, Volodymyr Zelenskyy signed an application for Ukraine's accession to the EU, which has already been accepted and registered.

On the same day, the presidents of eight EU member-states signed an open letter calling for the immediate provision of a pathway to EU membership to Ukraine and to begin accession negotiations. It seems that Hungary has not put forward any preconditions.

On 28 February, Zelenskyy is expected to speak in the European Parliament, as well as adopt an EP resolution calling on EU institutions to work on granting Ukraine the status of an accession candidate and, in the meantime, to continue working on integration into the EU single market.

The EU believes that the procedure for considering Ukraine's application may be important for President Zelenskyy, given that this issue could potentially be used in negotiations with the Russian Federation since the European Union is a project based on peace and conflict resolution through dialogue.