PM Péter Magyar and Ukrainian President Zelensky may meet soon in Transcarpathia

Prime Minister-elect Péter Magyar, leader of the Tisza Party, said on Tuesday that he had initiated a meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Transcarpathian Hungarians can regain their cultural, linguistic, administrative and higher education rights

Magyar said on Facebook after meeting with Zoltán Babják, the mayor of Berehove (Beregszász), in western Ukraine, that “the purpose of the meeting, to be held in early June in Beregszász, a town with a symbolic Hungarian majority, is to help improve the situation of Hungarians in Transcarpathia and enable them to remain in their homeland”.

The time has come for Ukraine to lift the legal restrictions that have been in place for more than a decade and for Hungarians in Transcarpathia to regain all their cultural, linguistic, administrative and higher education rights, so they can once again become equal and respected citizens of Ukraine, he added.

Magyar said this would also help ensure that, once the war ends, as many Hungarians in Transcarpathia as possible can return to their homeland. “If we can resolve these issues, we can certainly open a new chapter in Ukrainian-Hungarian bilateral relations,” he said.

Local Hungarians face many restrictions

The concessions announced by the Ukrainian government in 2025 regarding education were forward-looking but insufficient, he added. Magyar said that higher education in Ukraine remains monolingual, secondary school graduation exams are conducted in Ukrainian, and no substantive changes have occurred in other official areas of language use. He also said that official language use remains strictly based on a single language; in public administration, courts and official proceedings, only the Ukrainian language may be used.

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He said that the Hungarian minority could not request official services in their native language, not even in settlements with an ethnic Hungarian majority. Restrictions remain in place in public life and culture, because while Hungarian-language events can be held and Hungarian media outlets can operate, they do so “under the constraints of quotas, registration, and formal requirements”, he added.

European values, freedom, equality

He said that during public speeches, officials such as school principals or mayors still cannot freely use their native language. Magyar said he encouraged the Ukrainian leadership to “dare to take bold steps towards European values and true freedom and equality” in these areas as well.

He added that he had assured Babják that “our compatriots in Transcarpathia can count on the support of the motherland and the Tisza government in every respect”.

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