With the two-day EU summit in Brussels well underway, Prime Minister Viktor Orban shared photos on his Facebook page in the evening.
Brussels, EU summit. It's going to be a long day,
he posted.
The pictures reveal that the PM had a word with Volodymyr Zelensky on the sidelines of the EU summit. A short video of the exchange was also posted on the X platform, showing them having an animated discussion about something. Neither the Hungarian prime minister nor the Ukrainian president provided any insight as to what was being discussed.
In an X-message on Thursday, the Ukrainian president thanked Europe and the Belgian presidency for its support and briefly also mentioned Hungary, expressing hope that the upcoming Hungarian presidency would be as successful.
Volodymyr Zelensky gave a speech in Brussels before the start of the summit and subsequently signed a security pact with the European Union, MTI reports. The pact reaffirms the commitment of member states to provide broad support to Ukraine. It deepens existing EU initiatives, including on the training of Ukrainian soldiers, and makes long-term commitments to supply Ukraine with artillery shells and air defence systems.
Long-awaited meeting
A bilateral meeting between the Ukrainian and the Hungarian leader is long overdue. "In preparation for the Zelensky-Orban meeting, we set the condition that we first agree on the way forward for settling our unresolved issues on the table. We have not yet reached that point, so a meeting would not be timely, but we are working on it. The Ukrainians have now taken some steps to redress our grievances," Deputy Foreign Minister Levente Magyar told Magyar Nemzet late last year.
The fact that protection of the Transcarpathian Hungarian community's rights has finally become an official requirement of Ukraine's accession process, and that the Hungarian government has achieved a European-level guarantee for the protection of the indigenous Hungarian minority in the region, may serve as a step forward.
Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto recently said that all Hungarian conditions have been included in the framework document for EU accession negotiations with Ukraine. According to an earlier report by MTI, Fidesz MEP Andrea Bocskor commented that the move was "a significant Hungarian diplomatic success, serving as a major achievement for the Hungarian community in Transcarpathia in terms of regaining the rights that were denied them in recent years."
