Hungary’s incoming prime minister, Péter Magyar, offered on Tuesday to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to “open a new chapter in bilateral relations” and address a long-standing dispute over the rights of Ukraine’s ethnic Hungarians.
Relations between the two neighbors reached a low point ahead of Hungary’s April 12 election, in which Hungarians defeated longtime nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.
Orbán, who was ousted after 16 years in power, had repeatedly used the Central European country’s veto power to block financial aid to Ukraine and block the country’s EU membership.
“I am initiating a meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in early June, symbolically in Berehove, which has a Hungarian majority,” Magyar said in a social media post after meeting the mayor of the Ukrainian city in Budapest.
“The aim of the meeting is to help improve the situation of Hungarians in Transcarpathia and enable them to stay in their homeland,” he added.
The western Transcarpathia region of Ukraine is home to a sizeable ethnic Hungarian community.
Relations between Ukraine and Hungary soured in 2017, when Kiev passed a law making Ukrainian the main language of secondary education.
Hungary said the law deprived tens of thousands of ethnic Hungarians, who live mainly in Ukraine’s westernmost region of Transcarpathia, part of the former Kingdom of Hungary until the end of World War I.
“It is time for Ukraine to lift the legal restrictions that have been in place for more than a decade and for Transcarpathian Hungarians to regain all their cultural, linguistic, administrative and higher education rights, so that they can once again become equal and respected citizens of Ukraine,” Magyar said.
“If we can resolve these issues, we can certainly open a new chapter in Ukrainian-Hungarian bilateral relations,” he added.
Earlier in April, Zelensky traveled to the western region and met with representatives of the Hungarian community there, and thanked them for “their resistance throughout this difficult winter and for supporting the front.”
“Thank you for your service,” he said in a post on X.
Late last week, the European Union gave final approval to a €90 billion loan for Ukraine after Hungary lifted its veto, ending a two-month deadlock caused by the Orbán-led Hungarian veto.
The extension came two days after Zelensky announced that the Druzhba pipeline, which carries cheap Russian oil to Hungary and Slovakia, had been repaired and could resume operations.
The disruption of oil flows through Druzhba was at the heart of Orbán’s decision to veto the loan in February.
The last-minute blockage angered other EU leaders, who furiously condemned it as an “unacceptable” attempt at “blackmail.”
Magyar, seen as a more moderate successor to Orbán, said he wanted a reset in relations with Brussels and would value joining the eurozone.
He is also seen as less harsh on Ukraine, saying he wants Hungary to have friendly relations with all its neighbors.
He also stressed that Ukraine cannot be forced to accept a peace agreement that requires it to give up territory.
“No other country has the right to say that you have to give up this or that territory. Anyone who says such a thing is a traitor himself,” Magyar said.
But he also said that Ukraine’s accession to the EU “within the next ten years” would not be realistic and opposed any accelerated process for the country to join the bloc./BuzPost/
