EU accession: Ukraine and Moldova set to open two new negotiating clusters today
After Kyiv passed a new law on minority schooling, Hungary dropped its veto. All 27 EU states agreed, and an intergovernmental conference is scheduled in Luxembourg today.
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Ukraine and Moldova are taking another step toward EU membership: negotiating clusters 2 (internal market) and 3 (competitiveness and inclusive growth) are due to be opened at an intergovernmental conference in Luxembourg on Tuesday. All 27 member states agreed on Monday evening, said Thomas Byrne, Ireland's minister of state for European affairs, whose country holds the Council presidency. He called it another "Super Tuesday" for the candidate countries.
Ukraine's parliament cleared the way: on Monday the Verkhovna Rada passed a law on the educational rights of national minorities with 266 votes, and President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has since signed it, according to the Kyiv Independent. Under the law, minority children may study in their native language alongside Ukrainian; the expanded rights do not apply to Russian. Hungary had blocked the clusters four times, most recently on Sept. 8, according to the Kyiv Post.
Hungarian Foreign Minister Anita Orbán welcomed the vote after meeting her Ukrainian counterpart Andrii Sybiha and urged Kyiv to keep up the momentum. Clusters 1 and 6 are already open; after clusters 2 and 3, clusters 4 and 5 remain to be opened for both countries.