Can Hungary and Ukraine patch things up?

Budapest and Kyiv’s top diplomats met in western Ukraine today, as Hungary’s position on sending aid to the war-torn nation comes under heavy scrutiny. 

Hungary’s foreign minister, Peter Szijjarto, held talks with his Ukrainian counterpart, Dmytro Kuleba, in Uzhhorod — a region which is home to a large ethnic Hungarian community. This is the first time Szijjarto has visited the country since Russia launched its full-scale offensive against Kyiv, despite travelling to Moscow on several occasions.

“A frank and constructive dialogue is expected to improve relations between states,” said the Ukrainian president’s office. 

The trip comes a day after The FT leaked an EU document which revealed the bloc’s plans to sabotage Hungary’s economy if Budapest again blocked attempts to unlock funding for Ukraine at an emergency EU summit this Thursday. In the document, Brussels officials had outlined a strategy to “hurt jobs and growth” if Budapest refused to lift its veto against aid to Kyiv. Back in December, Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban blocked 50 billion euros in EU funding for Kyiv.

Unsurprisingly, Orban’s government has reacted angrily to this leaked document, insisting “Hungary does not give in to blackmail”. 

That said, Budapest today signalled a softening in its position towards Kyiv, or at least a willingness to compromise. Orban’s political director confirmed on X that Hungary was open to using the EU budget for a proposed 50 billion euro aid package to Ukraine, if other “caveats” were added.

Which begs the questions, can the strained neighbours patch things up? 

Hungary hasn’t been entirely hostile to all of Kyiv’s interests since the start of the war. It has, for instance, taken in 25,000 Ukrainian refugees who now receive state support. Yet its solidarity has been wavering, to say the least. 

Orban has been a vocal critic of Western sanctions on Moscow and refused to supply weapons to Ukraine – or even to allow the transit of weapons shipments through Hungarian territory. He has called for ceasefire negotiations with Moscow, insisting Kyiv cannot win the war. 

He grudgingly allowed Ukraine and Moscow to begin formal negotiations on joining the EU but refused to lend his support to them. Instead, by walking out of the room, he allowed the other 26 members of the bloc to cast a unanimous vote.

While Orban has condemned Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, he has avoided directly criticising President Putin. On the contrary, he is the one EU leader who has maintained close ties with the Kremlin, likely in part due to Hungary’s heavy dependence on Russian energy. 

However Hungary’s lack of solidarity with Ukraine isn’t just tied to Orban’s desire to keep in Putin’s good books. Ill feeling between the neighbours also stems from Kyiv’s treatment of the roughly 100,000 ethnic Hungarians living in Ukraine, largely in the region of Transcarpathia. 

Since 2017, the Ukrainian government has imposed laws attempting to clamp down on the use of minority languages in all spheres of public life. The main aim of such legislation is to tackle Russian influence in eastern Ukraine. But it has also impacted ethnic Hungarians’ ability to speak in their mother tongue, serving as a source of tension with Budapest. 

Ahead of Thursday’s EU summit, Kyiv has made an apparent attempt to modify such legislation so that it more directly targets Russia. Ukraine passed a new law guaranteeing the right of Hungarians and other “EU nationalities” to speak and study in their own languages. So far, Hungary hasn’t rushed to thank it. Mate Kocsis, the head of Hungary’s governing Fidesz faction in Parliament, dismissed the change as “cosmetic and of little weight”.

Even so, Kyiv’s change in law, alongside the shift in stance on EU funding signalled by Orban’s political director today, does suggest both countries are prepared to make compromises to cool tensions. 

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky recently proposed a direct meeting with Orban in an effort to “find solutions” to their differences. If today’s meeting between their top diplomats is a success, then it could lay the groundwork for a Zelensky-Orban tête-à-tête.

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