In the latest sign of deteriorating relations, Ukraine’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs has summoned Hungarian Ambassador to Kyiv Antal Hejzer in response to an advertising campaign portraying Hungarian opposition leader Péter Magyar as the ‘Hungarian Zelenskyy’. Ukraine’s EU accession is increasingly becoming a central topic in the electoral campaign for Hungary’s 2026 parliamentary election.
Taking over the rotating presidency of the Council of the European Union, Denmark has promised to exert maximum pressure on Hungary to lift its veto on Ukraine’s EU accession. However, looking back over recent years, there have been several similar threats against Viktor Orbán’s government, and Copenhagen does not have anything new to bring to the table either.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán declared that Hungary, backed by over two million votes in the ‘Voks 2025’ initiative, has blocked Ukraine’s EU accession. Speaking on Kossuth Radio, he also touched on migration, energy, the Pride march, and space policy.
Hungary’s Voks 2025 referendum on Ukraine’s EU accession became one of the most successful public consultations ever, with over 2.2 million votes. State Secretary Balázs Hidvéghi declared the results will shape Hungary’s stance in Brussels, opposing what he calls a ‘reckless’ EU push for Ukraine’s membership.
US President Donald Trump will not consider stricter measures against Russia, despite appeals from EU leaders and Ukraine during the NATO annual summit in The Hague. Secretary of State Marco Rubio argued that such actions would signal the end of diplomatic engagement.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán clashed during the annual NATO summit in The Hague over Ukraine’s bid to join the European Union. While Zelenskyy argued that it is unfair for a single member state to block Ukraine’s EU aspirations, Orbán responded that it is equally unfair to risk dragging the Union into a direct conflict with Russia.
The European Commission’s latest country-specific recommendations have drawn strong criticism from the Center for Fundamental Rights, which claims Brussels is pushing Hungary to abandon popular domestic policies in favour of multinational and geopolitical interests.
‘My colleagues listed some…fine principles: sovereignty, diversification, energy security, solidarity. However,…if the von der Leyen-Zelenskyy plan goes into effect, Hungary will be subject to the opposite of all these. This proposal is a serious violation of our sovereignty, since the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union states that energy policy decisions are a national competence.’
As the Trump administration signals its intention to step back from peace talks over the war in Ukraine—pressuring Kyiv and Moscow to engage in direct negotiations—a new structure for peace efforts is beginning to take shape. In parallel, the Vatican under Pope Leo XIV is assuming an increasingly active role in the process, positioning Rome as the new epicentre of the negotiations.
Hungarian agricultural leaders warn that Ukraine’s EU accession and EU budget reforms could slash farm subsidies by up to 25 per cent. Farmers and industry bodies rallied in Brussels to protest against plans that could merge the CAP into a broader superfund.
Hungarian Conservative is a quarterly magazine on contemporary political, philosophical and cultural issues from a conservative perspective.
