All 27 EU members approve opening accession talks with Ukraine, Moldova

Hungary’s PM Péter Magyar announced a deal expanding rights for ethnic Hungarians in Ukraine, clearing the final barrier to EU accession talks.politico
All 27 member states approved opening Cluster 1 — covering rule of law and democratic institutions — with a formal conference expected June 15.x
The breakthrough ends a two-year blockade that also stalled Moldova’s bid, with remaining negotiation clusters expected to follow in July.eurointegration

All EU Members Greenlight Ukraine and Moldova Accession Talks

All 27 European Union member states have agreed to open Cluster 1 — the “Fundamentals” cluster covering the rule of law, democratic institutions, and minority rights — in accession negotiations with Ukraine and Moldova, ending a two-year deadlock that had stalled both countries’ paths toward membership.

Hungary Lifts Its Veto

The breakthrough came on June 3, when Hungarian Prime Minister Péter Magyar announced that Budapest had reached a deal with Kyiv on expanding the rights of approximately 100,000 ethnic Hungarians living in Ukraine’s Transcarpathia region. According to Politico, Magyar said the agreement would expand the “linguistic, educational, cultural and political rights” of the Hungarian-speaking minority. “In just three weeks, we accomplished what Viktor Orbán failed to achieve in a decade,” Magyar stated.politico

Magyar had signaled the deal was imminent days earlier, telling reporters in Berlin alongside German Chancellor Friedrich Merz that he was ready to meet Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky if talks reached a breakthrough. Ukraine committed to restoring the minority school system and expanding the use of Hungarian in education, according to reporting by Xinhua.youtube

Ukrainian First Deputy Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko celebrated the development on X, writing: “Fantastic news — all EU member states have given the green light to open Cluster 1 in accession talks with Ukraine and Moldova”.x

Path to June 15

The Cyprus EU Council Presidency is now preparing for an intergovernmental conference expected on June 15 in Luxembourg, on the sidelines of an EU foreign ministers’ meeting, where the formal opening of Cluster 1 will take place. The Kyiv Independent reported that diplomats from two EU member states confirmed the June 15 target date.eurointegration

Cluster 1 covers five negotiating chapters dealing with economic criteria, the functioning of democratic institutions, and public administration reform. Once opened, the remaining five clusters — covering the internal market, competitiveness, agriculture, and external relations — are expected to follow in July.mezha

A Long Road Ahead

Ukraine applied for EU membership on February 28, 2022, just four days after Russia’s full-scale invasion. The European Council approved opening accession negotiations in December 2023, and the first intergovernmental conference was held in Luxembourg on June 25, 2024. But Hungary’s veto under then-Prime Minister Orbán blocked the process from advancing to the cluster stage for two years, also holding up Moldova’s bid under the EU’s “package approach” that links the two candidacies.newunionpost

Ukraine’s Deputy Prime Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration, Taras Kachka, has said Kyiv aims to close chapters across all clusters by the end of 2026, with a potential accession treaty drafted and signed in 2027. EU leaders are expected to celebrate the milestone with Zelensky at their June 18 summit.newunionpost