Hungary once again holds up Ukraine's EU accession process — Politico

BRUSSELS, June 23. /TASS/. Hungary has once again held up the process of bringing Ukraine and Moldova into the EU, refusing to support the opening of new negotiation clusters in July, which Kiev and the European Commission insisted on, the European publication Politico reported.

"Hungary on Tuesday opposed sending a letter to the European Council and Commission, on behalf of the bloc's 27 members, that spells out the joint position of EU capitals. Hungary was the only country to oppose the move," Politico wrote, citing its sources.

However, another attempt to approve this decision will be made again next week.

This move by Hungary was not unexpected: at the EU summit on June 18-19, "the wording indicating the acceleration of this process [Ukraine's accession] was deleted from the [document's] text" upon Hungary's initiative.

Hungary has a number of serious grievances against Kiev regarding the oppression of Hungarian minorities. It has no grievances against Moldova, but according to EU enlargement rules, these two countries are strictly linked within one enlargement group, and all stages can only proceed synchronously.

Both countries began accession negotiations with the EU on June 15, although the European Commission recommended doing so two years ago.

Negotiations provide no guarantees and set no timeline for accession. For example, Turkey began accession negotiations with the EU in 2005, but today the end of the process is not even in sight.