Getting round Orbán: how to unblock Ukraine's road to the EU 

On 1-2 September, ministers from all the EU member states gathered for an informal meeting in Copenhagen, the capital of Denmark, which currently holds the EU Council presidency. The key topic was EU enlargement, and representatives of key candidate countries were also invited to join the discussion.

Everyone emphasised publicly that the conversation was about principles and not specific countries. But in reality, the main obstacle to the enlargement process is Hungary’s politically motivated veto, which is blocking Ukraine’s progress toward accession (and with it Moldova’s as well).

There have been some shifts on this front.

The Copenhagen meeting was the first one at which European Commission representatives openly acknowledged that they have not ruled out proceeding with a vote bypassing Hungary. Up until now, officials had avoided stating this publicly, and media reports have relied on insider sources. But at this point, there is little sense in hiding it.

Ukraine’s position has shifted as well. Taras Kachka, Deputy Prime Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration, who in the early weeks firmly ruled out any workaround to bypass Hungary, softened his stance in Copenhagen. Moldova has also adjusted its course: Moldovan officials no longer advocate moving ahead separately from Ukraine, and are now emphasising the importance of opening at least the first cluster in parallel.

Nevertheless, the EU still lacks both agreement and a clear path for circumventing Hungary’s veto. Earlier options have been discarded, and new ones have yet to be agreed on.

The challenges don’t just come from EU member states – some of them come from Ukraine.

But they are not insurmountable. European Pravda is proposing an unconventional way out of the deadlock – one that draws on the EU’s experience and addresses the main concerns. We’ve discussed this idea with some stakeholders and received positive feedback. EU insiders who know the negotiation process inside out and mostly want to learn about European Pravda’s initiative can skip ahead to the final section of this article.

Positions of the EU, Ukraine and Moldova

Until recently, one of Kyiv’s main concerns was the idea of decoupling Ukraine and Moldova on their paths to EU membership. Advocates of this argued that Moldova’s pro-European government needed support ahead of the 28 September parliamentary elections. Starting accession talks in September would, they said, send voters a positive signal and guarantee that Moldova would not remain a hostage to Hungary’s veto.

Events in July, when Ukraine put the independence of its anti-corruption infrastructure at risk, further strengthened the arguments of those in favour of decoupling.

Now, however, it can be said with certainty that decoupling is off the table. The work done by Ukrainian diplomats and negotiations at a political level have convinced a number of EU states, including the Danish presidency, that the negative consequences of decoupling would outweigh the benefits.

In the end, Moldova agreed as well. The first official to state that decoupling was no longer on the agenda was Ina Coșeru, chair of the Moldovan parliament’s EU integration committee, in an interview with European Pravda. Coșeru stressed that this position is shared by the government. Cristina Gherasimov, Moldova’s deputy prime minister for EU integration, confirmed this in Copenhagen, telling journalists that the focus now is only on opening negotiations for Ukraine and Moldova simultaneously. She explained that this is due to the need to avoid negative consequences:
"For us, for our security, and for our path to the EU… We need a stable and secure Ukraine," she said.

There have been other, equally important changes in Ukraine’s stance.

As European Pravda previously reported, up until July, the government’s aim was to open accession talks by bypassing Hungary.

The reasoning was simple: all attempts to reach agreement with Budapest had failed, and Kyiv had come to realise that despite all its rhetoric, Orbán’s government was not genuinely concerned about the rights of the Hungarian minority in Zakarpattia, had no interest in negotiations, and was determined to block Ukraine’s European path at any cost. Discussions about various Plan B options were underway at the time.

With the change of government in July, Kyiv reconsidered this approach.

Taras Kachka, the new deputy prime minister for EU integration, began emphasising publicly that Ukraine was no longer considering any Plan B options to bypass Hungary.
"Ukraine seeks a decision by all 27 EU member states on our next steps towards membership – anything less would undermine EU unity," Kachka said on 13 August. In the following weeks, he repeated the message that Ukraine seeks only the support of all 27 states (Hungary included).

This policy shifted dramatically in Copenhagen.

Speaking to journalists on the second day of the ministerial meeting, Kachka acknowledged for the first time that Ukraine is once again allowing for the possibility of a non-unanimous vote.

"There are various options on the table, but I believe it is in Hungary’s interest to have the support of all 27. I truly believe that," the deputy prime minister said. Later that day, in an interview for the national joint 24/7 newscast, he stressed that Ukraine and the EU are working on opening the first negotiation cluster, and whether this will be approved unanimously "depends on Hungary".

It remains unclear what triggered Ukraine’s change of position. It is possible that Kyiv had been counting on some adjustments in Budapest’s stance in recent weeks, partly due to the instability in oil supplies via the Druzhba pipeline and after Donald Trump’s call to Orbán. However, this did not happen.

Meanwhile, within the EU, the idea of "bypassing" Orbán is being discussed more openly –

without specifics, but with unmistakable hints.

Gunther Krichbaum, Germany’s Minister of State for Europe, said before the start of the Copenhagen meeting: "There could be solutions to give a clear answer on this, but nevertheless, it is important to convince our Hungarian friends in this issue because it's not the first time that Hungary is blocking [joint EU decisions]." Asked directly whether it was time to say "Enough is enough" and stop taking Budapest’s position into account, he replied in a way that left the option open: "I would be satisfied if Hungary would respect the rule of law... But we will see."

Enlargement Commissioner Marta Kos was even clearer, stating outright that unanimity is not the only option under consideration.

"The best option would be support from all 27. At the same time, we are not in a usual process. Geopolitically, for the first time, we are facing external forces that want us [the EU] to fail," she explained to journalists ahead of the Copenhagen meeting.

Five arguments against "punishing" Hungary

In informal discussions, representatives of several member states say they support finding a way to bypass Hungary’s veto. It is now clear to every European capital that Orbán is abusing his veto on Ukraine and acting against the principles and rules of enlargement.

Moreover, Hungary is isolated on the issue of Ukraine’s EU accession. The fact that 26 leaders (all except Orbán) unanimously confirmed at the summer EU summit that Ukraine is ready to begin accession talks is clear proof of this.

But however bad Orbán’s reputation is among his fellow EU leaders, the idea of bypassing the veto still faces resistance within the EU, for several reasons.

The first reason is that a "forced" bypass of the veto, going against the position of one EU member, would set a precedent for the Union.

Nothing like this has ever happened in the EU’s history. The issue is not Ukraine itself, rather that for some member states, this precedent would be simply too dangerous.

For Ukrainians, the term "EU veto" is associated almost exclusively with Orbán, but in fact, it’s a tool that other member states also use or threaten to use – and not just the newer Central European members (such as Poland), but also Southern European states (like Cyprus or Greece, which were frequently criticised for veto abuse before Hungary took over that role), as well as some of the "old European" countries (such as the Netherlands).

This was one of the reasons why the initial Plan B discussed in the EU last spring didn’t work out. In the summer, European officials and politicians proposed a new Plan C: instead of a vote of 26, all the member states except Hungary would tacitly agree that the decision to open clusters (or at least the first cluster) would be taken by the European Commission. This reduced resistance but didn’t eliminate it.

The second reason is problems of legality.

Opening any cluster without unanimous approval would be an obvious violation of the negotiating framework adopted last year, and the European Commission is well aware of this. The aforementioned Plan C foresaw that Hungary would definitely take the Commission to the EU Court of Justice and win the case, but not until years later, by which time the accession process would be irreversible and the opening of clusters would have been confirmed by other decisions.

This sounds like cynical Realpolitik – but some Western European capitals objected to the idea of deliberately undermining the rules.

The third reason relates to other candidates.

Ukraine is not the only candidate that’s unable to open the first negotiation cluster because of a dispute with a neighbour. North Macedonia is in a similar situation, with Bulgaria raising objections over language and national identity. For Sofia, this raises the question: if Brussels bypasses Hungary, will we be next? And although the Ukrainian and Macedonian cases differ significantly in detail, it still poses a challenge that must be considered if Ukraine wants to keep all the EU members (except Orbán) on side.

The fourth concern is connected to Ukraine itself, although it seems manageable for now.

The July events around anti-corruption legislation dealt a serious blow to trust in the Ukrainian authorities, both domestically and among Ukraine’s international partners. The repeal of the "22 July law" reinstated the old legislation, but it did not restore trust.

Since then, Western embassies have repeatedly asked Ukrainian experts and activists whether accession talks should be opened after what happened, and at first they didn’t always get a firm "yes", sources have told European Pravda. However, the situation changed over August. Now, the need to open at least the first cluster has strong backing from Ukrainian civil society organisations focused on European integration. A European Pravda editorial received only positive feedback. European partners have noticed this as well.

A further boost came from a recent visit to Brussels by the heads of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) and the Specialised Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office (SAPO). According to sources, their positive signals also encouraged EU embassies and the Commission to seek ways to open negotiations with Ukraine.

Still, one must not forget the fifth key warning – from Ukraine itself.

While Ukraine’s friends in Brussels are searching for ways to overcome Orbán’s veto, Kyiv has at times been more cautious than they are, and with good reason. Diplomats working on European affairs stress that many of the workarounds that have been discussed in recent months were also unacceptable to Ukraine.

In particular, Kyiv is deeply sceptical about the idea of "unofficial accession talks" with no legal weight. Moreover, several sources have told European Pravda that President Zelenskyy (and others besides) believes any scenario that could serve as a prelude to the decoupling of Ukraine and Moldova would be unacceptable.

And this is far from a hypothetical concern.

That risk makes certain "political workaround" scenarios – those in which 26 member states endorse the opening of negotiations to show political, if not legal, support for Ukraine –  even more dangerous. Fine, the EU could adopt such a symbolic decision for us. But no one could compel Hungary’s representative to also vote "no" when it came to Moldova. And if Chișinău, unlike Kyiv, were to secure all 27 votes, the decoupling of Ukraine and Moldova would become a legal reality.

All these caveats must be taken into account, which is why a path to bypass Orbán has not yet been agreed.

But that doesn’t mean no such path exists.

How to break the deadlock

The EU is now searching for a solution that could circumvent the main obstacles. The need to act is felt more strongly than ever, yet no decision has been reached, largely because a viable scenario is still lacking.

We explained in this editorial why Ukraine needs an official green light for its path to EU membership, and why pushing reforms purely "on enthusiasm" will not be as effective. This understanding is largely shared in the EU as well. There is recognition that what’s needed is a creative, unconventional scenario – one that is not "virtual" but has a tangible impact on Ukraine’s progress toward membership.

And in fact the EU already has relevant experience – largely forgotten, but worth revisiting now.

In 2014, post-revolutionary Ukraine was also waiting for a signal from Brussels. A harsh winter had just passed – a winter that had seen people taking to the streets to defend their European future. Those protests grew into the Revolution of Dignity, which ended with the massacre in central Kyiv and the flight of the corrupt president Viktor Yanukovych. Russia had already launched its aggression by occupying Crimea. It was clear that the EU needed to send Ukraine a political message of support, and the obvious step was signing the Association Agreement (AA) – the very document that had triggered the protests in the first place.

The AA had been finalised and initialled three years earlier, but it had been frozen throughout Yanukovych’s presidency. A number of EU capitals objected to signing, claiming the new Ukrainian authorities lacked legitimacy (a message Moscow eagerly amplified in Europe).

Finally, at an emergency summit on 6 March 2014, EU leaders reached a compromise: the Agreement would be signed in two stages – first the political part, then, after elections in Ukraine, the economic part.

Legally, this idea was nonsensical. The AA was a single document. Splitting it into two separate agreements was politically impossible. It would have required new negotiations. In fact, almost all EU leaders opposed the split (reportedly, only Merkel supported it, citing Russia’s objections to the trade provisions). So the AA remained whole. But the leaders made a political decision and instructed Commission lawyers to draft a justification (even if artificial) for this step. In theory, there is no such thing as a "political signing" and an "economic signing" of the same document: an agreement becomes signed only once all signatures are in place.

Yet this "double signing" became political reality. The "political association" with Ukraine is still considered to have been signed on 21 March 2014. Some provisions of the AA also began to apply from that date onwards.

Accession talks with the EU do not require any new agreements to be signed with Ukraine. But the 2014 recipe can be repeated.

As explained in the previous section, the main problem with creative workarounds to Orbán’s veto is that they would break EU rules, since the process of opening a cluster is strictly regulated by EU law.

So let’s simply give a different name to the step we are taking without Orbán!

After all, Ukraine needs accession talks not "for the sake of talks", but in order to launch specific EU instruments, decisions and processes.

There is nothing in EU law to prevent the Danish presidency from convening an intergovernmental conference to approve two identical decisions for Ukraine and Moldova – say, "Approval of roadmaps as indicators for opening the first cluster toward readiness for EU accession". Hungary could and should be invited to that conference. But unanimity would not be required there – perhaps a Commission decision would suffice.

The official "opening of the cluster" would then be the second stage of this two-step process, just as in 2014. And that stage, of course, would still require unanimous approval, with Hungary’s vote included.

In this way, Ukraine would gain almost everything it needs at stage one. Roadmaps approved by the EU are the key element required for real accession talks under the Fundamentals cluster.

And given that Budapest is unlikely to lift its veto before the Hungarian elections in April 2026, such a strategy would enable Ukraine not to waste precious time, but to conduct de facto accession talks without waiting for Orbán’s consent. The same approach could then apply to Cluster 2 (Internal Market) and beyond.

This scheme would not violate EU rules, nor undermine the veto mechanism, nor create the risk of decoupling that Kyiv seeks to avoid.

All that is needed is political will and a sense of how historic this moment is, which the EU definitely has. As for the legal justification, there will be no difficulty about that. EU lawyers have never failed to produce a framework to explain and justify even the most unconventional political decisions. The example of 2014 is ample proof of that.

Sergiy Sydorenko,
Editor, European Pravda