BUDAPEST AND BRATISLAVA HOLD FIRM

Thursday, 03/09/2026, 00:21.

Hungary and Slovakia gave the rest of the EU a useful reminder of how much power still sits with a single capital. On Monday, Hungary blocked Ukraine's next step towards accession talks. On Tuesday, Slovakia refused to renew the EU blacklist of sanctioned Russians. In both cases, the mechanism was the same: under the treaties, foreign-policy and enlargement decisions still need unanimity, so one government can stop what the other 26 want to do. A day after eleven countries called for an end to obstructive vetoes, Budapest and Bratislava supplied the case study.

Hungary has frozen Ukraine's move towards single-market negotiations. Budapest has not rejected Ukraine's EU application outright. It has stopped the Council from turning the European Commission's technical approval into actual talks on the free movement of goods, workers, services and capital (European Pravda). Ukraine has cleared the screening stage. Hungary is holding the political gate that follows. Its stated demand is visible progress on minority-rights commitments for roughly 100,000 ethnic Hungarians in Transcarpathia before any new negotiation cluster opens (444). Romania has a similar complaint...