Update: Zelensky signs minority schools bill to appease Hungary, advance EU talks

Editor's note: The story has been updated with the latest details.

President Volodymyr Zelensky on Oct. 12 signed into law a bill reinforcing the educational rights of Ukraine's national minorities, a step that Hungary demanded before allowing Kyiv's EU talks to move forward.

The bill was passed by parliament earlier the same day.

The vote paves the way for the EU to formally open two more accession clusters with Ukraine and Moldova at a meeting in Luxembourg on Oct. 13.

The bill passed with the support of 266 lawmakers, according to lawmaker Yaroslav Zhelezniak. It still requires a presidential signature to become law.

The law would give Ukraine's Hungarian-speaking community and other EU-language national minorities more room to use their language in education. Roughly 80,000 ethnic Hungarians live in Ukraine's westernmost Zakarpattia Oblast.

According to the new legislation, schools where more than 50% of pupils study in the relevant minority language may be granted special status, and the head or deputy head of such a school must be proficient in that language, among other measures outlined in the bill.

"We welcome today’s important step by the Ukrainian Parliament on minority education rights. A positive result of months of joint work and constructive dialogue," Hungary's Foreign Minister Anita Orban said on X.

"Thank you to our Ukrainian partners. Let's keep this momentum going!" Orban added after the vote, as she met her Ukrainian counterpart, Andrii Sybiha, on the sidelines of an EU foreign ministers' meeting in Luxembourg on Oct. 12.

The bill covers official EU languages and languages of recognized indigenous peoples but not Russian, reflecting Kyiv's ongoing push to remove Russian from official and public spaces and counter decades of Moscow-imposed Russification.

Hungarian Prime Minister Peter Magyar also commented on the bill's passage, noting it "will make it significantly easier for Hungarian children in Transcarpathia (Zakarpattia Oblast) to use their mother tongue."

Ukrainian officials, in turn, have said the legislation does not bring major practical changes but rather formalizes the education rights for national minorities.

"It brings our legislation into line with EU principles," Ukrainian lawmaker Mykyta Poturaiev told the Kyiv Independent.

"There is nothing in it that we don't already provide for, in principle."

Fresh momentum for EU talks

Hungary's Kremlin-friendly former Prime Minister Viktor Orban spent years blocking Ukraine's EU accession talks, claiming Kyiv failed to protect the rights of its Hungarian minority.

The victory of Magyar's pro-European Tisza party in the Hungarian parliamentary elections in April provided new impetus to resolve the issue.

In early summer, Kyiv and Budapest announced an agreement on the educational, linguistic, and cultural rights of Ukraine's Hungarian minority.

Hungary then lifted its veto on Kyiv's EU accession talks, allowing the launch of clusters one and six — lists of reforms focused on democratic institutions and the rule of law, and on external relations, respectively — in June and July.

The agreement also allowed Moldova's accession talks to move forward, as the EU has politically linked the membership bids of Kyiv and Chisinau.

But Budapest later blocked the launch of additional clusters until Kyiv begins implementing changes under the agreement, starting with educational rights.

Ukraine expects that the passage of the law will help unblock two more clusters, addressing internal market and competitiveness — a step that was preliminarily cleared by EU envoys on Oct. 7.

"I will never tire of repeating: there is no better way to guarantee the rights and security of the Hungarian national minority in Ukraine than to ensure Ukraine's accession to the EU as soon as possible," Sybiha said.

While meeting his Hungarian counterpart in Luxembourg, Ukraine's chief diplomat "thanked the Hungarian side for its constructive position" on accession talks.

All 27 EU member countries have agreed in principle to open the next two accession clusters with Ukraine and Moldova, the Irish EU Presidency confirmed after the bill was passed.

This clears the way for the formal opening of the clusters at the Intergovernmental Conference on Oct. 13.

"(I am grateful) to Ukrainian MPs for adopting (the) European integration bill, safeguarding the educational rights of Indigenous peoples and national minorities in Ukraine," Ukraine's Deputy Prime Minister for European Integration Vsevolod Chentsov said on X.

"An important step towards securing human rights and advancing (Ukraine's) EU accession."

Kyiv aims to have all six accession clusters open by the end of the year.