Lithuania proposed to start technical negotiations on Ukraineʼs accession to the EU without Hungaryʼs consent

Last week, Lithuania sent a letter to the European Union countries, proposing that at an informal ministerial meeting in Copenhagen on September 1-2, negotiations with Ukraine and Moldova begin without the consent of Hungary, which is blocking Ukraineʼs accession to the EU.

This is reported by the Lithuanian media LRT.lt.

There are 27 countries in the European Union, and if all but Hungary agree to Lithuaniaʼs proposal, negotiations on Ukraineʼs accession to the bloc will proceed technically, and they can be formally consolidated later, when Budapest changes its position or government.

Lithuania also calls for setting a clear date for Ukraineʼs accession — 2030. This, according to Vilnius, will allow both the EU and Kyiv to plan decisions, resources, and transition periods.

Lithuaniaʼs letter stated that now is the crucial moment for the European Union to act decisively, support Ukraineʼs European integration aspirations, and make the accession process "tangible and irreversible".

In particular, the country wrote that "the prospect of membership would strengthen the morale of Ukrainians and give impetus to reforms. Otherwise, both support for accession and motivation to change the country may decline".

"Lithuania seeks to unblock Ukraineʼs membership negotiations, which have stalled due to Hungaryʼs veto. Further delay is harmful to both Ukraine and the European Union. Ukraineʼs membership is part of security guarantees and a prerequisite for long-term stability. If consensus cannot be found, we must look for alternatives and move forward without Hungary," the acting Lithuanian Foreign Minister Kęstutis Budris said in a comment to LRT.lt.

But the publication notes that the European Commission is skeptical about the idea of starting technical negotiations without the consent of all members of the bloc. Its representatives remind that the opening of each chapter requires unanimity.

"We are working with Ukraine, encouraging it to implement reforms regardless of the negotiation chapters, because they will bring benefits. And in parallel, we are working with member states to formally open these chapters as soon as possible," said European Commission spokeswoman Paula Pinheau.

Lithuaniaʼs proposals are due to be discussed this week in Copenhagen, where EU foreign ministers, led by foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas, will focus on Russian aggression against Ukraine and the situation in the Middle East.

Hungaryʼs position on Ukraineʼs membership in the EU

Hungary has been blocking Kyiv’s efforts to join the EU. For example, in April 2025, the government of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán urged Hungarians to vote against Ukraine’s EU membership in a national poll. The results of that vote were released on June 26, with Hungarian authorities claiming that 95% of Hungarians were against Ukraine’s EU membership.

Earlier, opposition Hungarian politician Peter Magyar criticized the “national consultations” organized by Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s team and called them a failure. Magyar said that at most 600 000 Hungarians took part in the survey, the lowest figure in the history of national consultations. And “tens of billions of forints” were spent on it.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine reacted to the Hungarian national consultations on Ukraineʼs accession to the EU and stated that "the real goal of this anti-Ukrainian hysteria is to shift the attention of Hungarian society from the failures of the governmentʼs socio-economic policy to an imaginary external enemy."

Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski admitted that due to the Hungarian veto during his countryʼs presidency of the EU, it was not possible to open a single negotiation chapter with Ukraine.

The media reported that the US President Donald Trump, at the request of European leaders, called Hungarian Prime Minister Orban and asked him not to block Ukraineʼs entry into the EU. The next day, the Hungarian Prime Minister wrote that he had heard the request for EU membership, but did not plan to back down.

• A new escalation in relations between the countries occurred after three attacks by Ukrainian drones in August on the “Druzhba” oil pipeline, which supplies oil to Hungary and Slovakia.

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