Ukraine sees its EU membership bid advancing before the end of this year thanks to “creative solutions” to overcome Hungary’s opposition, Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Taras Kachka told POLITICO.
EU leaders could sign off on opening as many as six negotiating “clusters” — legal steps on the path to membership in the bloc — in December as “political momentum” builds and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán faces growing pressure to remove his veto, he said.
“You can complete preparation of reopening of all clusters and if there will be a political momentum, then all clusters can go already by the end of this year,” Kachka said in an interview.
He added: “The position of Hungary is getting more and more unjustified.”
The Hungarian leader has placed opposition to Ukraine’s EU membership at the center of his bid for reelection next year, arguing that such a large new member would destabilize the bloc.
But Kachka argued during a stopover in Brussels that Hungary’s “painful” opposition to Ukrainian membership was not insurmountable and that a solution would be found most likely during a December gathering of European leaders.
“I believe that member states will find a solution in December,” he said after sharing notes on Ukraine’s internal reforms with EU national representatives.
Kachka added that an in-person meeting between Orbán and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was possible to unstick the membership problem, though he could not say “when and where it will take place.”
‘Waiting is not an option’
Ukraine got the political green light to start accession talks in 2023 and has been negotiating for months to enter the bloc. But without a legal sign-off from all 27 EU countries, Kyiv will not have formally begun its accession process — a point of growing frustration for millions of Ukrainians.
“What is difficult to explain in [Ukrainian] society is that we need to wait. … Waiting is not an option,” Kachka said regarding Kyiv’s membership bid. “We need to have a solution here and now. This is important for Ukraine but also for the European Union.”
A formal green light to join the EU would mark a major victor for Zelenskyy, who recently emerged empty-handed from a meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump in Washington. Trump has rebuffed Kyiv’s efforts to join NATO, while Hungary is the main obstacle to its membership in the EU.
Kachka hailed an initiative by European Council President Antonio Costa to facilitate the process of applying to join the EU, saying the Portuguese politician had “advocated heavily” in favor of removing hurdles. “Antonio Costa is really strong in this case. And I will be glad to see if his initiative will be successful,” Kachka said.
Costa’s initiative was shot down at an informal gathering of leaders in Copenhagen, but pro-enlargement countries have since come up with a new proposal to overcome opposition not just from Hungary, but also from other skeptical states such as Bulgaria and Greece.
Under this new proposal, first reported by POLITICO and currently being studied in Brussels, new entrants to the EU would not have a right to veto bloc-wide policy decisions. This would amount to second-tier membership in the bloc, but could overcome deep-seated fears of the EU’s agenda being taken hostage by new members potentially including Ukraine, Moldova and Western Balkan countries such as Montenegro.
Kachka didn’t comment specifically on the new proposal but praised what he called “creative solutions” to address opposition from Hungary and other EU governments.
Poland is one country where fear of being flooded with cheap Ukrainian agricultural produce has led to concerns about Kyiv’s membership, but Warsaw isn’t alone. As recently as July, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz suggested he didn’t expect Ukraine to join the EU before 2034 at the earliest.
“I know Poland quite well,” Kachka said. “That’s why I understand that … farmers are an essential element of [Poland’s] social fabric. I think that the solutions are there so that you can fine-tune the Common Agricultural Policy in a way that allows for greater efficiencies in the EU-wide food system,” he said.
Despite pressure from eager candidate countries and top EU officials, European leaders seem to be in no rush to unblock the process. A draft version of the latest Council conclusions obtained by POLITICO contained no mention of enlargement.
The post Ukraine’s EU membership bid set for breakthrough in December, says deputy PM appeared first on Politico.
