JM Varga made the announcement on her social media after Thursday's informal meeting of ministers in charge of European affairs in Stockholm, where the accession of Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia to the EU also featured on the agenda.
"Hungary is committed to the enlargement of the EU and supports all three countries in their European integration efforts. Hungary's position is clear: the credibility and integrity of the EU's enlargement policy requires that we should not forget the Western Balkan countries, whose enlargement process is equally important for Europe's future, prosperity, unity and security,"
– Ms Varga wrote.
She also underlined that the EU's enlargement policy must be a balanced, fair and merit-based process for all candidate countries.
"A fast track approach that ignores these aspects is not in the interest of the EU,"
– she added.
While we acknowledge Ukraine's efforts so far to meet the criteria for candidate status, there are some things that we simply cannot ignore, JM Judit Varga wrote. Because of the Hungarian minority living in Ukraine, Hungary considers the restoration of the rights that national minorities used to enjoy before 2015 to be of utmost importance, she said. She stressed that the protection of national minorities was a core EU value, and Hungary expects the European Commission to monitor Ukraine's compliance thoroughly in this area.
The rights of national minorities must be guaranteed in all laws of Ukraine, especially the country's education law, the law on state language, and the law regulating national minorities, JM Varga said.
To this regard, the Venice Commission also believes that Ukraine still has a lot to do.
"As a consequence, we, Hungarians, cannot support any progress towards providing candidate status for Ukraine without Ukraine guaranteeing the rights of national minorities," JM Varga wrote in her post.
