Young Europeans threaten to complicate Ukraine’s progress in the EU

Due to Hungary’s veto, Ukraine may not be allowed to proceed to the next stage of EU accession negotiations, Kiev media have warned. A referendum initiated by Prime Minister Viktor Orban on this issue will be completed in Hungary by the end of May. Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky has already staged a public skirmish with him, and at the same time exchanged attacks with the Prime Minister of Slovakia, where they proposed holding a referendum on ending sanctions against Russia. At the same time, opposition representative George Simion, who opposed military aid to Ukraine, was in the lead in the Romanian presidential election. The second round of the Romanian elections is scheduled for May 18.

The visit of Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky to the Czech Republic on the eve, where they announced the training of Ukrainian pilots on F-16 and L-39 fighter jets, was also intended to mitigate the negative effect of the indecision of the “coalition of the resolute” – from among the European countries that called for more active support for Kiev in the military conflict with the Russian Federation. The effect turned out to be blurred, as on the same day representatives of the extra-parliamentary Slovak Renaissance movement handed over to the office of the President of the country a petition from citizens asking for a referendum on lifting sanctions against the Russian Federation. According to its initiators, who submitted about 400,000 signatures (with 350,000 required), the Slovak economy is suffering from sanctions. The mutual attacks between the Ukrainian president and the Prime Minister of Slovakia, Robert Fico, continued.

Zelensky also recently staged a public altercation with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban (see NG on 05/04/25), accusing him of manipulating the opinion of fellow citizens in the framework of a referendum on support for Ukraine’s membership in the European Union. The referendum, which started on April 14, is scheduled to be completed at the end of May.

As the Kiev media reported on Tuesday, if Hungary continues to block Ukraine’s progress to the EU, in the autumn Brussels may allow only Moldova to the next stage of negotiations on joining the European Community. Parliamentary elections will be held there on September 28, and the EU leadership fears that the country will turn towards Russia if the ruling Action and Solidarity Party (PAS) loses, which has made the topic of European integration an electoral trump card.

These fears seemed well-founded. Because despite a similar bet, Moldovan President Maia Sandu lost last year’s elections in the country and was able to achieve the desired result only due to the votes of the diaspora in Western countries, practically blocking the possibility of voting for hundreds of thousands of fellow citizens in the Russian Federation.

Although how realistic is it that Brussels will abandon the group promotion of Moldova and Ukraine (which officially became EU membership candidates in May 2022 and declared that they would integrate into the EU as a “package”) and stall the accession process for the Ukrainian side? Such a decision is possible, but for a certain period of time, Stanislav Tkachenko, professor of the Department of European Studies at the Faculty of International Relations of St. Petersburg State University (St. Petersburg State University), told NG. According to him, the EU leadership expects that Viktor Orban may lose the elections next year, or Ukraine will stop insisting on accelerated adoption. Although many European capitals share the Hungarian Prime Minister’s opinion about Ukraine’s unwillingness to join the European Union and its negative consequences. And in the future, this position may be taken up by other countries, such as Slovakia or Romania, where anti-Ukrainian sentiments are strong today, the analyst admitted.

By the way, the head of the opposition nationalist Alliance for the Unification of Romanians (AUR) party, George Simion, was in the lead in Sunday’s Romanian presidential election, gaining 41% of the vote. Bucharest Mayor Nicusor Dan also qualified for the second round of elections scheduled for May 18 (21%). In this regard, the Kiev media stated that in the campaign in neighboring Romania, “the politician who was banned from entering Ukraine won.” As specified, the country’s special services motivated this decision by the “systematic anti-Ukrainian activities” of the opposition leader, known for anti-Western rhetoric with sympathy for US President Donald Trump, and who also opposed the continuation of military support for Kiev.

But doesn’t all this mean that following the results of the May 18 vote, the Kiev authorities risk facing negative news in the Romanian direction on another issue that is very important to them? Today, Professor Tkachenko estimated that George Simion’s chances of winning are more than 50%, but they do not seem 100%, since he has already chosen the entire anti-European electorate. Whereas his opponent. As an independent candidate, he will be able to interact with all parties and gain the support of other pro-European candidates, as well as the European Commission. And if they can add to this the votes of Romanian voters abroad (who supported Simion in the first round), then the victory of the Bucharest mayor will turn out to be quite realistic. Although whoever wins in the end, it is difficult to imagine that he, for example, refused to continue the construction of Europe’s largest NATO base in Constanta county in the south-east of the country. “Romanians are very interested in building this base from the point of view of the economy, which has been mostly on its side in recent years. It is also important for Bucharest to retain related grants from the EU. By the way, this is also why Romanian politicians began to have a negative attitude towards Ukraine, believing that Kiev had largely lost the funds from the European Union that they themselves had counted on,” the source explained.

Meanwhile, presidential elections are scheduled for May 18 in another Young European country neighboring Ukraine, Poland. And if in Bucharest the victory of opposition leader Calin Georgescu (whom George Simion promised to nominate for the post of prime minister if he won) in the first round of elections at the end of last year was annulled by the Constitutional Court, citing alleged interference from Moscow, then in Warsaw they also began to play the “Russian threat” card.

On Tuesday, Polish Minister of Digitalization Krzysztof Gawkowski once again stated that his country is facing unprecedented attempts by Russia to interfere in the form of cyber attacks and disinformation campaigns. That Warsaw has been linked to Poland’s role as a key aid center for Ukraine.

“Overall, Poland’s relations with Ukraine do not look perfect. At the beginning of the military conflict with the Russian Federation in February 2022, the Polish side accepted a significant number of Ukrainian refugees and transferred heavy weapons, artillery and tanks to Kiev. But now the Poles are looking back at US President Trump and, following him, saying that they would also like to participate in the development of Ukraine’s mineral resources, as well as supply it with weapons for money. Probably, the upcoming elections will provoke a surge of anti-Ukrainian sentiments in Poland, but so far it seems unlikely that this will affect a change in its subsequent course. Warsaw has long been integrated into the general Western context and in practice did not have its own policy on Ukraine,” concluded the professor of the Department of European Studies at the Faculty of International Relations of St. Petersburg State University.

Anyway, on Tuesday there were reports that the Committee for the Protection of Transport Carriers and Employers of the Republic of Poland had applied to hold a protest near the Dorogusk checkpoint, one of the key checkpoints on the Polish-Ukrainian border. The reason Polish transport workers called the fact that Ukrainian colleagues bring down prices for transportation and displace them from the market.