EU member states unanimously agreed to open Cluster 2, the internal market, and Cluster 3, competitiveness and inclusive growth, with Ukraine and Moldova, only hours after Kyiv passed a minority education law in response to Hungary’s demands.
The clusters are among six thematic clusters in total that organize the legal and institutional reforms that must be adopted and implemented to join the EU.
The breakthrough finally came through after Ukraine’s parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, passed amendments expanding education rights for national minorities and, by doing so, introduced a special status for general secondary schools serving national minorities.
Hungarian Prime Minister Péter Magyar welcomed the move in a statement on Facebook, saying that the amendments would make it fundamentally easier for Hungarian children in Ukraine’s Transcarpathia region to use their native language.
