Ukraine’s EU Accession Is Dangerous on Every Level

Ukraine continues to move forward on a fast-tracked path toward European Union membership. Despite corruption scandals and significant legal obstacles, Brussels remains determined to push Ukraine’s admission through—raising the possibility that the EU could end up importing the war along with it. Magyar Nemzet spoke with Dr. Zoltan Lomnici Jr., department director at the Szazadveg Foundation, about both the obvious and the less-visible dangers.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky (Photo: AFP)

Brussels remains committed to bringing Ukraine into the European Union, and to doing so as quickly as possible. Yet Ukraine’s accession carries risks across multiple areas, and in many respects the country stands at odds with fundamental EU values.

Ukraine's accession would entail numerous risks that Brussels is not discussing. (Photo: YVES HERMAN / POOL)

The European Commission has repeatedly declared Ukraine’s accession one of its highest priorities. Not even the Ukrainian corruption scandal has shaken Brussels’ resolve; officials already speak as though Ukraine might join in the coming years. To enable this, they are prepared to employ every legal maneuver necessary to move Ukraine onto an accelerated track to membership.

Still, the prospect of EU accession has triggered a long list of legal concerns—some obvious, others more indirect.

Prime Minister Viktor Orban has repeatedly warned that admitting Ukraine would also mean admitting the war into the European Union. It is also widely known that Ukraine does not treat the minorities living on its territory— including ethnic Hungarians in Transcarpathia—appropriately. On these questions, and on the dangers of Ukrainian accession, we asked for expert analysis from Dr. Lomnici Jr at Szazadveg.

Regarding the possibility of “importing” the war, the constitutional lawyer emphasized that this is not merely one of many aspects of Ukraine’s accession, but the single most important—and one that is routinely underestimated.

The European Union is not merely an economic bloc, but—under the treaties—a political and security collective in which member states undertake obligations for one another’s defense. The strongest legal basis for this is Article 42(7) of the Treaty on European Union, which clearly states that if a member state is the victim of armed aggression, the other member states are obligated to provide all available aid and assistance,

he told us.

Lomnici noted that while the provision acknowledges each member state’s unique defense policy, the essence remains clear: an attack on one activates the security obligations of all, triggering collective legal responses.

When we apply this rule to Ukraine’s situation, the implications become starkly clear. Ukraine is currently engaged in an armed conflict; parts of its territory are outside its effective control, and hostilities are not isolated incidents but an ongoing reality of war. If Ukraine were to join the European Union under such conditions, Article 42 would make the war not a neighboring country’s problem, but an internal EU matter,

he said.

The constitutional lawyer added that this would directly violate the EU’s declared goals of peace and security as written in the Treaty preamble. Admitting a country at war would mean the EU itself becomes a party to that conflict, since member-state support obligations would activate automatically.

This wouldn't be a symbolic “importation” of war. The security, military, and financial burdens would fall onto the entire bloc, undermining the EU’s most fundamental treaty objectives. Under such circumstances, fast-tracked accession would not promote peace—on the contrary, it would bring the European Union closer to the direct consequences of an ongoing armed conflict,

he stressed.

Lomnici also addressed the question—raised increasingly across Europe—of whether EU accession could eventually lead to young Europeans being called into military service. He stressed that this concern is not unfounded: conscription has been returning across the continent over the past decade.

“Lithuania reinstated conscription in 2015, Sweden in 2017, Latvia in 2024. Norway and Denmark have extended it to women, and in October 2025 the Croatian Parliament voted to introduce mandatory service starting in 2026. That brings the number of EU member states with conscription to nine (Austria, Cyprus, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Greece, Latvia, Lithuania, Sweden), and Croatia will join them in 2026,” he emphasized.

He also pointed to developments in Germany, where every 18-year-old male will be required to undergo a fitness assessment, and if voluntary enlistment is insufficient, the law will allow “needs-based” conscription, including lottery-based call-ups.

The proximity of war has already triggered a wave of conscription across Europe. The debate has surfaced in Hungary as well. A politician from the Tisza Party recently declared at a public forum: ‘We didn’t abolish conscription, we only suspended it—so if trouble breaks out, everyone must be called up immediately.’ According to a fresh Szazadveg poll, however, 80 percent of Hungarians reject mandatory conscription, and even three-quarters of Tisza Party supporters oppose it,

Lomnici noted.

From the legal and economic facts available, he said, it is difficult to reach any conclusion other than that Ukraine’s accelerated accession would pose serious economic, military, and institutional risks for the European Union.

He stressed that 

The most immediate consequence would be the transfer of Ukraine’s massive war-related and reconstruction costs into the EU budget. According to Bruegel’s 2024 report, Ukrainian accession would impose roughly €137 billion in additional net costs on the EU for the 2021–2027 budget period—further straining an already overstretched financial framework and delaying development programs within existing member states.

Further Concerns Regarding Ukraine’s Readiness

Turning to minority rights, Lomnici emphasized that Article 21 of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights prohibits discrimination based on membership in a national minority, while Article 22 requires the EU to respect cultural, religious, and linguistic diversity.

The situation of ethnic Hungarians in Transcarpathia is already fraught with challenges, and recent tragic events have made matters even worse. In July 2025, Jozsef Sebestyen, a Hungarian from Transcarpathia, died shortly after being summoned by Ukrainian authorities. According to his family, he was mistreated at the recruitment center,

he recalled.

As previously reported, video footage emerged raising suspicions of severe abuse. Though Ukrainian prosecutors investigated, they concluded that the death was caused not by external violence but by an underlying medical condition, and the case was closed for lack of criminal evidence.

Lomnici added that several Ukrainian laws in recent years have further restricted the use of minority languages. “The 2017 education law required that, after fourth grade, instruction in public schools be conducted primarily in Ukrainian. Minority languages could be used only in the early grades and in certain subjects. The 2019 state language law mandated Ukrainian-language use in nearly all areas of public life,” he noted.

The law allows only few exceptions, limiting minority languages mostly to private life or religious services. It also introduced media and publishing quotas favoring Ukrainian,

Lomnici said.
He recalled that the Venice Commission’s December 2017 opinion stated that the 2017 education law significantly curtailed opportunities for minority-language education and that Ukraine previously had far broader minority-language protections. The new rules failed to maintain an appropriate balance between the state language and minority languages.

Lomnici contrasted this with the EU’s strict posture toward Turkey, where accession talks were frozen—in part due to inadequate minority protections—as reflected in Commission and European Parliament reports from 2023–2024, which cite democratic backsliding, insufficient minority rights, and structural rule-of-law shortcomings.

In Ukraine’s case, however, EU institutions are not applying comparable political pressure. This raises serious questions about the consistency of enforcing rule-of-law criteria and suggests that, in some instances, the Union is willing to relativize the Copenhagen accession standards for geopolitical reasons,

the constitutional lawyer argued.

Cover Photo: European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky (Photo: AFP)