Hungarian Foreign Minister Anita Orbán, who is visiting Lithuania, said she does not consider Ukraine's accession to the European Union by 2030 realistic, but emphasized that Budapest supports Kyiv's EU accession process. LRT reports, UNN writes.
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"We do not consider this realistic. We strongly support a merit-based process, and in my opinion, we agree with Lithuania on this issue," the minister said.
She noted that all candidate countries must meet the same requirements, ruling out any accelerated accession process for Ukraine.
"Every country must go through the same procedure that we went through. We also do not support any accelerated accession," she said.
At the same time, Orbán noted that Ukraine has made significant progress in the accession process: four of the six negotiating clusters have already been opened. She attributed some of this progress to improved relations between Hungary and Ukraine, as well as to an agreement on protecting the rights of the Hungarian national minority in Zakarpattia.
Lithuanian Foreign Minister Kęstutis Budrys expressed greater optimism about Ukraine's prospects of joining the EU by 2030, noting that a target date should be set.
"We are more optimistic about the timeline. We believe that a target date can and should be set," Budrys said.
He noted that accession by 2030 is theoretically possible if Ukraine implements the necessary reforms quickly enough and the EU completes the necessary stages of the process on time.
"We believe that it is still possible to complete all the processes by 2030. If we, on the European Union's side, manage to do everything quickly enough, and Ukraine carries out the reforms, it is theoretically possible," Budrys said.