Tensions Flare Up in Brussels After Viktor Orban's Announcement

Brussels is deeply upset by the results of the consultative survey Voks 2025, which showed that an overwhelming majority of Hungarians reject Ukraine’s EU accession. According to the Hungarian outlet Mandiner, tensions were palpable during closed-door talks among EU leaders: many believe Hungary is creating a political obstacle to the accession process, while the European Commission continues to plan for Ukraine’s membership before 2030. Meanwhile, Ukraine is attempting to counter this with a new propaganda narrative.

Brussels is deeply upset with Hungary over the Voks 2025 results, Mandiner writes. On Thursday, during the first day of the European Union summit of heads of state and government, Prime Minister Viktor Orban announced the outcome of the consultative vote Voks 2025: the 'no' side won by a margin of 95 to 5, with 2,168,431 Hungarians voting against Ukraine's EU membership. The portal recalled that the vote was prompted by a March statement from European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who said Ukraine could join the EU before 2030.

Brussels Worries

This statement caused concern within the Hungarian government, which had previously supported Ukraine's accession, because entry before 2030 would mean that Ukraine could become a full member of the EU within eight years of obtaining candidate status. Among the former Eastern bloc countries, only the two wealthiest and most developed countries, Slovenia and the Czech Republic, have been able to achieve this so far.

If Ukraine, a country at war and considered Europe's poorhouse even before the war, can go through the accession process in eight years, it raises the the well-founded suspicion that our eastern neighbor could become a member of the European Union in a politically forced manner, disregarding the proper accession process, which would be detrimental to the EU as a whole. 

Mandiner spent the  days of the Brussels summit attending off-the-record background briefings. These revealed widespread anger toward Hungary over Voks 2025. Sources confirmed that Commission President von der Leyen, as stated back in March, is pushing to fast-track Ukraine’s membership, preferably before 2030, for geostrategic reasons. However, the EU insists this will not mean abandoning merit-based criteria, saying Ukraine will not receive a "geopolitical discount."

Brussels Dispels Arguments, Ukraine Reframes

The response to Hungary's concerns regarding Ukrainian agriculture, minority rights, and other issues is that the accession negotiations offer the best forum to resolve these issues, since the EU sets the rules for agriculture for all member states, and Hungary, for which Ukraine is one of the largest export markets outside the EU, would be a clear beneficiary of the accession.

Brussels does not consider it a strong argument that a significant proportion of Hungarians do not support Ukraine's EU membership, given that support for Hungary's accession was not high in the member states at the time, with some countries recording lower than 40 percent support. In addition, experience shows that if one member state halts the accession process of a candidate country over bilateral issues, it encourages other member states to put obstacles in the way of the accession process of either the same or other candidate countries.

From these background briefings, it has also emerged that Ukraine is deploying a new propaganda narrative against Hungary in its dealings with Europe.

As is known, Hungary has consistently stated it wants the rights enjoyed by the Hungarian minority in Ukraine prior to 2015 to be restored. Ukraine managed to convince Brussels of the the unjustified nature of Hungary's demand by reframing the issue: Ukraine communicates to Brussels that Hungary's demand of returning minority rights granted prior to 2015 is setting the restoration of "President Yanukovych's constitution" as a condition for Ukraine, arguing that a return to excessive minority rights protection would lead to the Balkanization of Ukraine and loss of its character as a unified nation-state. 

By dropping the name of Viktor Yanukovych, widely seen in Europe as a pro-Russia figure, Ukraine has managed to delegitimize Hungary’s demand for the restoration of the rights the ethnic Hungaran minority enjoyed for twenty-four years between 1991 and 2015 under the presidencies of Leonid Kravchuk, Leonid Kuchma, and distinctly pro-Western Viktor Yushchenko preceding Yanukovych. Furthermore, they manage to sweep under the rug the fact that Hungary's demands concern the rights of the Hungarian minority, not changes to Ukraine's constitution.

Cover photo: European Commission headquarters in Brussels (Photo: AFP)