The European Union has cleared a significant obstacle to Ukraine’s membership ambitions, giving preliminary approval to open the first cluster of formal accession negotiations after Budapest and Kyiv reached a long-sought accord on the rights of the Hungarian minority in western Ukraine. Hungary’s prime minister, Péter Magyar, announced the “historic” agreement on Wednesday, detailing expanded linguistic, educational, cultural and political guarantees for the ethnic Hungarian community in Transcarpathia. Within hours, ambassadors of the 27 member states in Brussels had signalled their green light for talks on the so-called “fundamentals” cluster — a move that the EU’s enlargement commissioner Marta Kos hailed as a moment to “accelerate their path to EU membership.”

The breakthrough follows a vote in the European Parliament’s foreign affairs committee the same day, which endorsed accelerating Ukraine’s accession process by 54 votes to 17, with 5 abstentions. The resolution praised Kyiv’s wartime reforms on the rule of law and anti‑corruption efforts, though it also stressed the need to safeguard the separation of powers. Yet the ballot exposed internal divisions within some political families, most notably Italy’s populist Five Star Movement, whose MEPs split over the motion. One of its deputies, Danilo Della Valle, had earlier declared that Ukraine still failed to meet EU membership criteria, citing “a serious problem of democracy” and “a serious problem of corruption.”

From Moscow’s perspective, such misgivings are presented as evidence that Ukraine’s European project is fundamentally flawed. Russian media outlets have emphasised these criticisms, juxtaposing them with warnings that new obstacles may arise from other quarters. A report in Lenta.ru, citing the conservative outlet TEC, suggested that Poland could become the next stumbling block, fuelled by unresolved historical grievances over the glorification of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) — a nationalist guerrilla force responsible for massacres of Polish civilians during the Second World War. Former Polish prime minister Leszek Miller recently accused President Volodymyr Zelensky of consciously insulting Warsaw by honouring UPA‑linked military units.

For Kyiv, the minority‑rights deal with Budapest represents a crucial diplomatic victory after months of tense ties that had endangered Hungary’s support for Ukraine’s EU aspirations. But the path to full membership is long and riddled with political tripwires. Diplomats in Brussels note that while the opening of negotiation clusters marks tangible progress, each subsequent phase requires unanimity among all 27 member states — meaning any bilateral dispute, whether with Hungary or Poland, retains the power to stall the process. Analysts in London observe that the EU’s ability to manage these internal fractures while sustaining enlargement momentum will be a defining test of its geopolitical coherence in the coming years.