Hungary blocks Ukraine-NATO commission, reportedly distributed 100K passports in Ukraine

For the third time, the Hungary blocked a meeting of the
Ukraine-NATO commission in Brussels out of opposition to Ukraine’s recently
adopted language policy in elementary education, the Ukrinform news agency
reported on Apr. 23, citing anonymous diplomats. The commission was planned to
convene on Apr. 26 as part of the North Atlantic Council meeting of foreign
ministers. The language law gradually increases the number of subjects taught
in Ukrainian, which the Hungarian government claims violates the rights of
ethnic Hungarians in Ukraine, mostly in the Zakarpattia region. Hungarian
Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto has also said he will block Ukrainian
President Poroshenko’s participation in the NATO summit in Brussels on July 11
and 12.

At least 100,000 Hungarian passports have been
distributed in the Zakarpattia region of Ukraine to Ukrainian citizens, Deputy
Foreign Minister of Ukraine Vasyl Bodnar told the RFE/RL news agency in an
interview published on Apr. 21. They were distributed before the EU granted
Ukraine a visa-free travel regime (in April 2017), Bodnar said, citing various
sources of data, including those collected by the Hungarian government. Between
30,000 and 40,000 working age Ukrainian citizens of Hungarian descent have left
for EU countries other than Hungary for work, he said. “Both Ukraine and
Hungary lost them, practically,” he said.

Zenon Zawada: For a
country that isn’t directly cooperating with Russia, Hungary might as well be
with such hostile gestures. It’s worth considering that distributing passports
to Ukrainian citizens was a precursor to Russia’s invasion of Crimea, and NATO
officials may become suspicious that the nationalist Hungarian government could
pursue a similar annexation if Ukraine is further destabilized.

The scapegoating of Ukraine was an effective election
maneuver for Prime Minister Viktor Orban that gained him strong results in the
Apr. 8 vote, but the long-term consequences of Ukraine failing to integrate
into Euro-Atlantic structures could prove negative for Hungary as a whole.
Instead of worrying about restrictions on the Hungarian language in Ukrainian
schools, Hungarians could find themselves growing hostage to the influence of
Russian criminality in their economy, or overwhelmed by Ukrainian refugees in
the event of further destabilization.