According to Hungarian FM, Ukraine bears sole responsibility for deterioration of relations between the two countries

“I cannot say that we have reached the lowest point in our relationship, because no one knows if there is still room for further deterioration – which, unfortunately cannot be ruled out,”

Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Péter Szijjártó said in his video on Thursday after meeting with Taras Kachka, Ukraine's Deputy Prime Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration in Budapest.

In Szijjártó’s opinion, Kyiv bears sole responsibility for the deterioration of the relationship between the two countries. In spite of this, Hungary has always favoured positive gestures, given that as a country, we have an interest in maintaining good relations with all of our neighbors, including Ukraine, he said. He cited the Hungarian-Ukrainian bilingual school in Budapest and the upcoming launch of a direct railway service between the two countries as examples of such positive gestures.

After the "good news," Szijjártó moved on to talking about the rights of the Hungarian community in Transcarpathia to use their native language having been systematically taken away by Ukraine since 2015, and said that at Thursday's meeting, he had made several demands related to restoring these rights. Szijjártó also asked his Ukrainian counterpart to stop bombing the Druzhba oil pipeline and thus jeopardizing Hungary's energy security. "I didn't ask for this because of Russia, but because of ourselves," Szijjártó said.

According to Szijjártó, Hungarians had made a clear decision regarding Ukraine's EU accession, arguing that it would be contrary to Hungary's economic and security interests. For this reason, the Hungarian Foreign Minister would recommend that the European Union should instead begin negotiations with Ukraine about strategic cooperation as a more realistic alternative.

"I sincerely hope that the relationship between Hungary and Ukraine will develop better over the course of the next ten years than it has during the past ten years. We are ready for it, but it must also be made clear that this depends solely on Kyiv and Ukraine," said Szijjártó.

Tarasz Kachka gave a more positive evaluation of the meeting: according to the Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister, Thursday's talks were candid and constructive, and the two sides moved closer to one another on minority rights and matters related to energy.

In his post, Kachka added that they are also interested in solving the problems of the Hungarian minority in Transcarpathia and have ideas on how to do so.

"We also discussed cooperation in the field of energy—how to ensure the stability and diversification of oil and gas supplies, and how we can together reduce and eliminate the supply of Russian gas and oil to the EU," Taras Kachka wrote. In his opinion, "political debate on the future of the EU is not an obstacle for negotiating all clusters of the EU acquis and there are pragmatic solutions that can ensure the respect of the position of all EU Member States".

The original plan was for Szijjártó to meet with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha, but it was revealed a few days ago that the Ukrainian government would instead be delegating Taras Kachka to the talks in Budapest. At the end of August, Sybiha sent a message to Szijjártó saying that Hungary was on the wrong side of history. He wrote this on his social media page after the Hungarian Foreign Minister had announced that Hungary had barred Robert Brovdi, the Ukrainian army's drone commander of Hungarian descent, from entering the Schengen area because of the Ukrainian attack on the Druzhba oil pipeline.