Peter Magyar calls Zelenskiy to a meeting in western Ukraine and calls the concessions made by Kiev “not enough”

Hungary's election winner Peter Magyar proposed a meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in western Ukraine to discuss the rights of the Hungarian ethnic minority in the region, the future prime minister from Budapest announced on Tuesday in a Facebook post, according to Reuters.

The centre-right Magyar leader ousted nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orban after 16 years in power in elections on April 12, winning a constitutional majority that will allow him to overturn Orban's controversial rule of law reforms.

While Magyar does not share Orban's open hostility to Ukraine, he nevertheless opposes Kiev's early accession to the European Union and says the treatment of ethnic Hungarians in western Ukraine – the Transcarpathia region – will be essential to restoring relations between the two countries.

“The purpose of the meeting is to improve the situation of Hungarians in Transcarpathia so that they can stay in their homeland,” Magyar said after speaking with Zoltan Babjak, the mayor of Berehove, a Ukrainian town near the Hungarian border where ethnic Hungarians make up the majority.

Under the leadership of Viktor Orban, Budapest has repeatedly clashed with Kiev over what it sees as restrictions on the rights of some 150,000 ethnic Hungarians to use their native language.

Magyar said it is time for the authorities in Kiev to restore all cultural, linguistic, administrative and higher education rights of ethnic Hungarians, which he said could also ensure the return, with the end of the war, of many of those who fled after the start of the Russian invasion in 2022.

“If we manage to resolve these issues, this would certainly open a new chapter in bilateral relations between Ukraine and Hungary,” wrote Magyar, who plans to be sworn in as prime minister at the inaugural session of parliament on May 9.

“The concessions announced by the Ukrainian government in the field of education in 2025 are a step forward, but they are not enough,” he added, encouraging Ukraine's leaders to take what he called an important step towards European values ​​and genuine freedom.

Ukrainian officials reacted with cautious optimism to the Hungarian election result. Zelenskiy congratulated Magyar on his victory, saying that Ukraine is ready for “meetings and constructive cooperation”.