Hungary’s deteriorating relations with Ukraine are clearly Kyiv’s responsibility, but the government remains committed to dialogue, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó said in Budapest on Monday, announcing that Ukraine’s foreign minister will visit Hungary this week.
According to the ministry’s statement, Szijjártó stressed that the worsening of relations is solely Ukraine’s fault. He highlighted that in recent years Ukraine has continuously curtailed the minority rights of the Hungarian community in Transcarpathia.
‘How could relations be improved? For example, if the Ukrainians restored all the minority rights they took away from the Hungarians. It’s entirely up to them. If the anti-corruption law could be withdrawn in one minute under European pressure, then minority rights could also be restored in the same amount of time,’ he said.
Szijjártó criticized the European Union for showing concern over the placement of anti-corruption institutions in Ukraine’s state administration while ignoring the fate of Hungarians in Transcarpathia. ‘This was literally thrown in my face in a private conversation by the EU enlargement commissioner in Copenhagen,’ he noted.
He added that Hungary nevertheless supports ongoing dialogue, which is why his Ukrainian counterpart, Andrii Sybiha, will travel to Budapest this week. ‘I am ready once again to discuss all these issues with him. Over the past eleven years, I have met numerous times with four different Ukrainian foreign ministers. I always said what we wanted, and the opposite always happened. But that’s how diplomacy and foreign policy work: we should try again,’ he remarked.
Relations between Hungary and Ukraine have been at a historic low in recent months. Szijjártó himself engaged in a heated war of words on X, clashing with Ukrainian officials over drone strikes on the Druzhba oil pipeline, a key piece of infrastructure transporting Russian oil to Hungary. On 23 August, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy openly threatened Budapest, stating that the continuation of strikes depended entirely on Hungary’s position on Ukraine’s EU membership. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán remains the only EU leader blocking the process.
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