The EU may enlarge, what impact will this have on Hungary?

The most important part of European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s State of the European Union address was when she spoke about EU enlargement and European integration, Hungary’s regional development minister said late on Wednesday.

Von der Leyen’s assertion that the bloc could expand to more than 30 members in the future is “the clearest statement made in the recent period”, Tibor Navracsics said at a discussion on the future of the EU organised by the European Parliament Liaison Office for Hungary.

The minister, a former European commissioner, welcomed that the EC president had made it clear that enlargement was a “false dilemma”, saying this “gives a very good perspective for integration, as integration is a real success story when it comes to peacemaking”.

Former foreign minister Péter Balázs agreed that counting the Western Balkan states and the members of the EU’s Eastern Partnership programme, the bloc could admit up to nine new members by as soon as 2030.

Concerning green transition, Balázs said that the process at times hurt the competitiveness of industry, and the room for manoeuvre in the transition had been restricted by the Russia-Ukraine war and the sudden need in some cases to cut off “uncertain Russian energy sources”.