Hungary has done it again. At Tuesday’s meeting of the EU’s General Affairs Council, 26 member states stood ready to approve a conclusion to keep the union’s enlargement drive on track. Budapest refused.
“Today we tried to reach Council conclusions (on enlargement), but unfortunately that was not possible,” said Marie Bjerre, Denmark’s minister for European affairs and chair of the Council session. “Hungary is blocking us from reaching Council conclusions. Our attempts to find a solution have met rejection, and I very much regret this,” she said at a press conference following the meeting.
The Dane’s frustration crackled. Ms Bjerre warned that the veto “does send a wrong signal to candidate countries. We want them to choose EU, not to choose Russia.” She reminded colleagues that Podgorica, Skopje, Kyiv and Chişinău have all pressed ahead with reforms on the promised merit-based path to membership. Twenty-six capitals had backed the text. One, led by Moscow’s ally, tipped it into the bin. The union’s unanimity rule let, once again, a single capital let months of drafting go to waste.
Piotr Serafin, the EU’s commissioner for budget, tried to keep spirits up. “When it comes to enlargement, we believe that if we prepare it well, it can be part of the answer to the challenges we are facing in the EU,” he said. One month earlier the Commission had tabled its 2025 enlargement package, which, Mr Serafin noted, made membership “again a realistic prospect in the coming years.”
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A thinner substitute
With consensus shattered, Ms Bjerre produced plan B. “What we will instead is that we’re going to have presidency conclusions supported by 26 member countries,” she explained. Such papers carry no legal weight and rarely travel beyond Brussels, but they at least record majority intent. Asked whether leaders might conjure a workaround before their summit later this week, Ms Bjerre was gloomy: “There will be no Council conclusion on the enlargement.”
Whatever the cause of Budapest’s obstinacy, Ms Bjerre stressed that candidate capitals have delivered. Mr Serafin agreed. “We have welcomed a substantial progress made by four candidate countries, Montenegro, Albania, Ukraine and Moldova, on their path toward accession,” he said.
Hungary’s obstruction overshadowed real progress earlier in the day. Ministers nodded through the provisional closure of five more chapters in Montenegro’s accession talks, covering services, capital flows, company law, agriculture and fisheries. That brings the total closed to twelve out of 33. “The EU may, if necessary, return to these chapters at an appropriate moment,” reminded Ms Bjerre, citing the standard clause that nothing is final until every file is wrapped up.
Preparing the club
Commissioner Serafin wants to bank those gains and move on. “We should start the process of preparations for the draft of the accession treaty of Montenegro,” he said. He also urged officials to “continue to front load at the technical level preparations for the negotiations with Ukraine and with Moldova and once the conditions are there to formally come back to the negotiating framework as soon as possible.”
Progress by our partners requires a clear EU response. — Piotr Serafin, EU budget commissioner
The commissioner insisted that Brussels itself must get ready. “We have already presented that preparation as part of our proposal on the next MFF with the Global Europe Fund, where we have also set aside resources for the accession countries,” Mr Serafin noted. “But it is not the last word. We should also reflect on how to adjust our policies to the incoming enlargement and we plan to present the position of the Commission on that specific issue next year.”
Ms Bjerre echoed the point. Enlargement, she said, remains “very much important for all other member countries,” and the EU must show that reforms in Tirana, Kyiv, Chișinău and Podgorica will be met with opportunity, not indifference.
A clear response
Leaders gathering in Brussels must now strip the missing enlargement passage from their draft summit conclusions or find bland language that sidesteps the impasse. Presidency notes, however, cannot mask the fact that unanimity failed when it mattered. Mr Serafin warned that “progress by our partners requires a clear EU response”; for now the response is a shrug wrapped in supportive words.
Still, the machinery grinds on. Montenegro’s five extra chapters prove that diligent candidates can inch forward even as politics sours. Technical teams will keep drafting treaties, screening laws and tallying budget lines. Yet as long as one capital wields an enlargement veto for unrelated leverage, the EU’s promise of a “merit-based” path to membership rings hollow.
Hungary is blocking us from reaching Council conclusions, and I very much regret this. — Marie Bjerre, Denmark’s minister for European affairs
Ms Bjerre ended the press conference with weary resolve. “We want them to choose EU,” she repeated. The other 26 governments agree. They now need to find a way to make that choice believable when unanimity can be dashed by a single raised hand.
