Hungarian Speaker Forsthoffer to Meet Ukrainian Parliamentary Leader in Rome

Hungarian parliamentary Speaker Forsthoffer Ágnes is set to meet Ukrainian House Speaker Ruslan Stefanczuk in Rome next week, a dialogue arranged at the European Parliament Presidents' Conference. The bilateral session was proposed by Forsthoffer and will occur alongside the broader gathering of parliamentary leaders. Tensions between the two countries have lingered, partly due to disputes over Hungarian-language schools for the Carpathian Hungarian minority and other EU-recognized minorities.

Former foreign trade minister Péter Szijjártó previously delivered an eleven-point demand list to Ukrainian counterpart Dmitro Kuleba, calling for the restoration of language rights abolished after 2015. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrij Szibiha recently praised Hungary for enabling the next phases of EU accession negotiations and thanked Prime Minister Viktor Orbán for collaborative efforts, noting a new law aimed at minority education rights has been approved by the Ukrainian parliament.