Hungarian Prime Minister Péter Magyar said that he personally insisted on removing the clause on Ukraine's accelerated accession to the EU from the declaration after the EU summit.
“As for the process of Ukraine's accession to the EU, at the last moment, on my initiative, the clause on accelerated accession was removed from the text. It was not easy“, he wrote on Facebook*.
In early June, Magyar said that Budapest, after an agreement with Kiev to restore the rights of Transcarpathian Hungarians, would not hinder the start of negotiations on Ukraine's accession to the EU. He also stressed that Hungary remains opposed to the accelerated accession of any country, including Ukraine, to the EU and adheres to a “merits-based” approach.
Last Friday, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced that all EU countries had agreed to start substantive negotiations on Ukraine and Moldova’s accession to the bloc.
The EU granted candidate country status to Ukraine and Moldova in June 2022. However, he acknowledged that this was largely a symbolic decision aimed at supporting Kiev and Chisinau in their confrontation with Moscow. In June 2024, the first intergovernmental conferences between them and the European Union were held in Luxembourg, launching accession negotiations.
These steps do not necessarily mean admission to the bloc and do not commit Brussels to anything: they simply mark the beginning of a rather lengthy process of joining the bloc. Turkey has been a candidate since 1999, North Macedonia since 2005, Montenegro since 2010, and Serbia since 2012. Croatia was the last to join the EU, in 2013, a process that took ten years.