The head of the Presidential Office, Andriy Ermak, said that the negotiations with the head of the Hungarian Foreign Ministry showed the mutual desire of Kyiv and Budapest to hold a summit meeting.
The Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine Dmitry Kuleba and the head of the presidential office Andriy Ermak met in Uzhgorod with the head of the Hungarian Foreign Ministry Peter Szijjarto. “Looking forward to frank and constructive dialogue that will improve relations between the states.” What did it come from?
Hungarian questions
Known for his openly anti-Ukrainian statements, Szijjártó pardoned Ukrainians with his photos of his trip to Uzhgorod. Many saw in them the footage of some Hollywood action movie, as if the Hungarian prime minister did not go to the safest city of Ukraine, which is located right on the border of the EU, but at least to Avdiivka or Bakhmut.
Szijjártó said Budapest wants the Hungarian minority in Transcarpathia to return to the rights they had before 2015.
“We set aside part of the time allocated for negotiations with national minorities. Based on what the representatives of the Transcarpathian Hungarian minority asked, we ask the Ukrainian government to ensure the rights that were guaranteed before 2015,” said Szijjártó.
According to him, a representative of Hungary is in the commission, which should discuss Hungarian demands with the Ukrainian side.
“We hope that results will be achieved here and we hope that these decisions that will be made will be included in the laws,” said the Hungarian minister.
He clarified that the Hungarian side formulated a request in 11 points: in particular, the restoration of the status of the national school, the opportunity to obtain a matriculation certificate in the Hungarian language and to use Hungarian in the field of public life. According to him, the commission was tasked to agree on these issues as soon as possible and develop proposals for the ministries.
At the same time, the leaders of the Hungarian communities of Transcarpathia positively assessed the Ukrainian law on the rights of national minorities, which was recently adopted by the Rada.
Ukrainian answers
The Ukrainian side is committed to a final settlement of the dispute with Hungary regarding the rights of national minorities, and a special commission under the leadership of the Foreign Ministry will present a “concrete understanding” of this direction within 10 days, Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba said.
“We agreed on one simple thing. We asked the Hungarian side to give us a complete list of questions it has regarding the issue of protecting the rights of representatives of minorities, we received this list .
We agreed that, under the auspices of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, we will form a special commission, with a very simple task: within ten days it must submit for consideration to the governments of both countries of a certain understanding of how and what from The list of issues we received need to be resolved, or fixed so that we can provide final clarity,” said Kuleba.
According to him, if previously the issue of national minorities was about making decisions in the context of Ukraine’s membership in the EU, now there is a desire to have this discussion at a bilateral level in order to “finally resolve the issue, which has already been fundamentally resolved in the interest of all national minorities.”
Big meeting
The head of the Presidential Office, Andriy Ermak, said that the negotiations with the head of the Hungarian Foreign Ministry showed the mutual desire of Kyiv and Budapest to hold a summit meeting.
“Today, both sides have absolutely clearly stated that there is an interest in holding a meeting at the level of the Prime Minister of Hungary and the President of Ukraine. I believe that today we have taken a very strong step towards the meeting that Of course, we are all interested in this meeting being successful and opening a new page in our relations,” said Ermak.
According to the head of the OP, specific dates have not been discussed, but both parties have expressed interest in the meeting taking place as soon as possible.
Ermak also noted: Kyiv is interested in the upcoming meeting that will end with “concrete results.”
EU currency
The meeting in Uzhgorod took place on the eve of an emergency EU summit scheduled for February 1. Here, the leaders of all 27 EU countries will try to win over Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban on the issue of supporting Ukraine.
Hungary is blocking the approval of the EU’s multi-year budget, which includes 50 billion euros of financial aid to Ukraine.
If Orban cannot be convinced, Hungary will face EU sanctions, the Western press wrote. A specific plan, authored by one of the officials of the Council of the European Union, appeared in Brussels, which proposes to completely block Hungary’s access to tens of billions of euros in pan-European programs. In this case, Hungary will face an economic shock, the document says. The plan is already supported by several EU member states, wrote the FT and called such sanctions “a significant escalation in the EU’s struggle with the most pro-Russian member of the European Union.”
At the same time, an EU official told the newspaper that the leaked “plan” was a technical memo of a background nature and did not reflect the progress of the negotiations.
Bloomberg reports that the EU is determined to approve aid to Ukraine at the February 1 summit, despite Orban’s objections. To achieve this, in addition to completely disconnecting Hungary from EU currency taps, several other options are being discussed.
One spends 50 billion not through the budget, but through a special extra-budgetary fund of the European Union, to which everyone except Hungary will transfer money. However, it would require decisions by the parliaments of 26 countries to allocate the funds, which would delay the delivery of aid by months, if not years.
The second option is to strip Hungary of its voting rights in the EU. This is the main trump card, but it also requires ratification, and this time unanimity, in all the other 26 countries. Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico, another opponent of aid to Ukraine and sanctions against Russia, has already spoken out against it.
Source: korrespondent
I am David Wyatt, a professional writer and journalist for Buna Times. I specialize in the world section of news coverage, where I bring to light stories and issues that affect us globally. As a graduate of Journalism, I have always had the passion to spread knowledge through writing.