The leaders of the states and governments of the European Union decided on Thursday to open accession negotiations with Ukraine and Moldova, and with Bosnia and Herzegovina once the membership criteria are met.
Georgia also gets the status of a candidate for full EU membership.
The decision of the EU heads of state and government was confirmed by the President of the European Council, Charles Michel.
"The European Council approved the status of a candidate country for Georgia. The EU will start negotiations with Bosnia and Herzegovina when the necessary degree of harmonization with the criteria for membership is achieved," Michel wrote on the X network.
Before the beginning of the summit, the question became whether there will be accession negotiations with Ukraine or whether the summit will fail?
Neither accession negotiations for Ukraine, nor money for Kyiv from the European Union budget, was the position of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.
In two letters he sent to the President of the Council of the European Union, Charles Michel, Orbán explained that Hungary will not vote either for the initiation of accession negotiations with Ukraine, or for the inclusion of financial aid for Ukraine in the EU budget.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, at a joint breakfast before the summit, tried to convince his Hungarian counterpart to give way. Scholz did not want to tell the gathered journalists whether he managed to achieve anything. "It is important for us to now set a course that will improve the enlargement process and that it is also a decision supported by all member states." Now we will discuss it intensively, Scholz said at the time.
Orban: Senseless decision
After the decision of the European Council to open accession negotiations with Ukraine, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán declared that it was pointless, because Ukraine is not ready to start negotiations.
"We were at the negotiating table for almost eight hours and we had a big discussion about Ukraine's membership in the EU." Hungary's position is clear: Ukraine is not ready to start membership negotiations. It is a completely senseless, irrational and wrong decision to start negotiations with Ukraine under these circumstances," Orban said in a video message on the X social network.
"Hungary will not change its position, but, on the other hand, 26 other members insisted that the decision be adopted." That's why Hungary decided to let those 26 countries go their separate ways. "Hungary does not want to be a part of that, and that is why it did not take part in making that bad decision today," said Orbán.
Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenković told Croatian journalists that Orban left the meeting when the vote on Ukraine was supposed to take place, and diplomatic sources say that the Hungarian Prime Minister "was absent from the hall in a pre-arranged and constructive manner."
BG/RTS/Free Europe/FoNet
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