---
title: "A Seat at the Table Nobody Sat In: How the Carpathian Eight Froze Hungary and Ukraine"
description: "A summit membership disputed in public and an oil deal disclosed on Telegram leave Budapest and Kyiv at what one diplomat calls a cold peace"
author: "Inez Holloway"
published: 2026-09-26T06:42:04Z
modified: 2026-09-26T19:06:15Z
url: https://rews.cc/a/a-seat-at-the-table-nobody-sat-in-how-the-carpathian-eight-f-37be0c
language: en
tags: ["politics", "eu", "ukraine", "hungary", "diplomacy", "europe", "world"]
publisher: "Rews (https://rews.cc)"
---

# A Seat at the Table Nobody Sat In: How the Carpathian Eight Froze Hungary and Ukraine

*A summit membership disputed in public and an oil deal disclosed on Telegram leave Budapest and Kyiv at what one diplomat calls a cold peace*

By Inez Holloway · September 26, 2026 · https://rews.cc/a/a-seat-at-the-table-nobody-sat-in-how-the-carpathian-eight-f-37be0c

## In brief

- Zelenskyy opened the first Carpathian Eight summit in Bukovel naming eight members, but Hungary’s leader was absent from the photo
- Kyiv counted Hungary’s chargé d’affaires as participation; Budapest said only a leader’s presence and signature confers membership
- Foreign Minister Sybiha accused PM Magyar of continuing Orbán-era obstructionism in a public clash on X
- Budapest is blocking further EU accession clusters for Ukraine pending Rada passage of Hungarian minority-rights legislation
- A MOL-Naftogaz oil-storage memorandum, disclosed on Telegram, drew Magyar’s anger and an attack from Orbán’s Fidesz

The photograph showed six foreign leaders. The list named eight countries. Somewhere between the list and the photograph lies the current state of relations between Hungary and Ukraine, and it is not good.

Last Thursday, in the ski resort of Bukovel in western Ukraine, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy opened the first summit of the Carpathian Eight, a new regional cooperation framework meant to tighten investment and regional ties among neighbours. Zelenskyy counted the members aloud: Ukraine, Romania, Serbia, Poland, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Austria and Hungary. Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk came. Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić came. Hungarian Prime Minister Péter Magyar did not. Hungary sent its chargé d’affaires in Kyiv, a low-level diplomat who signed nothing.

Whether that constituted membership depends on which capital you ask. In Kyiv, it did. In Budapest, it did not. By Monday night the question had become a public quarrel on X, and by Saturday a memorandum about storing Ukrainian oil in Hungary had become a second one. Euronews, which reconstructed the week through diplomats in both countries, reports relations have been driven to a new low — remarkable, given that the low they started from was the era of Viktor Orbán, who built an election campaign on portraying Zelenskyy as a threat.

## Two versions of the same room

A Ukrainian diplomat, speaking anonymously to Euronews, described weeks of entreaty. “Very active consultations took place at the level of Foreign Ministers Andrii Sybiha and Anita Orbán, as well as at the level of our representatives in Brussels and between the capitals,” the diplomat said. Budapest, the source conceded, offered only the chargé. “It is not a high-level representation – let’s be frank, it is a low-level one – but they will be taking part.”

A Hungarian diplomat involved in the preparations remembers a different conversation. “The story is about Ukrainians being unashamed. They were lobbying very hard in Budapest for weeks for Magyar’s presence,” the source said. “Magyar made it clear beforehand that he is not going. The membership is only approved by the presence of leaders and their signature. The Chargé d’Affaires was just an observer.”

In Hungarian government circles, being read into the C8 was regarded as a mistake — a mishandling, not a cause for war. What turned it into a headline was Sybiha. “What we’ve been hearing from Budapest lately leaves us confused,” the Ukrainian foreign minister wrote. “It seems that while Viktor Orbán is gone, his policies of obstructionism and isolationism continue to thrive.”

> To claim that a sovereign country is a member of an international cooperation (Carpathian Integration) without prior consultation or consent of the country concerned is completely unacceptable.

That was Magyar’s reply. The exchange ran in both countries’ press, and the comparison — Magyar as Orbán’s heir in obstruction — touched the nerve it was aimed at. “Since taking office, the new Hungarian Government has repeatedly demonstrated its willingness to rebuild pragmatic, constructive and mutually respectful relations with Ukraine,” the Hungarian Foreign Ministry said in a statement to Euronews. “Against that background, we do not believe that comparisons with the obstructionist policies of the previous Hungarian government are accurate or helpful.”

## The hundred thousand

Underneath the protocol quarrel sits an older one. Around 100,000 ethnic Hungarians live in Ukraine’s Transcarpathia region, and their language and cultural rights have been the sticking point between the two governments for years. In June, Kyiv and Budapest agreed on an action plan to broaden those rights; Hungary, in return, approved the opening of two negotiating chapters in Ukraine’s EU accession talks. Since then Budapest has blocked further clusters, demanding that Ukraine’s parliament, the Rada, pass the relevant legislation. Under the joint plan, the Rada has until the end of the year.

Magyar, according to Euronews’ sources, was only ever interested in the Carpathian summit if there was movement on the minority file he could carry home as a success — conservative voters remain sceptical of Kyiv after years of anti-Ukrainian campaigning, but the cause of Hungarians abroad polls well in the same electorate. A planned bilateral with Zelenskyy was made conditional on the legislation. “The ball is in Ukraine’s court. They need to solve the minority issue,” the Hungarian diplomatic source said. “If this law had been adopted earlier, Magyar could have been at the Carpathian summit.”

Kyiv reads the ledger differently. “Ukraine considers that it has fulfilled its part of the agreement,” the Ukrainian source said, pointing to the signed joint declaration. “And we expect that Hungary, as it promised, will fulfil its part of the agreement, which consists of unblocking all negotiation clusters with the European Union, rather than coming up with additional conditions on the go and inventing further obstacles as to why it cannot do so.”

## The memorandum

On the sidelines of the summit, executives of MOL, the Hungarian energy group, and Naftogaz, the Ukrainian state company, were talking about oil. On Saturday the two signed a memorandum of understanding to explore storing Ukrainian crude at Hungarian facilities — MOL has spare capacity, and NATO-member storage would put Ukraine’s supplies beyond the reach of Russian strikes. Such memoranda are routine and usually confidential. Naftogaz announced this one on its Telegram channel.

Magyar learned of the deal from the disclosure, Euronews reports, and reacted angrily. Orbán’s Fidesz, now in opposition, moved within hours, accusing the prime minister of putting Ukraine’s interests ahead of Hungary’s and endangering national security. “Under my government, no such storage will be built at the Hungarian-Ukrainian border, or anywhere else,” Magyar said on Monday. He noted the state holds a 25% stake in MOL. “MOL’s practice is completely unacceptable; from now on, I expect the company to treat the Hungarian state as a 25% owner. We’ll see what the consequences of this will be.”

MOL Group, in a statement to Euronews, described the memorandum as ordinary business. “MOL Group, like many other industry players, has several non-binding memoranda of understanding in the energy sector,” the company said, calling such agreements “the first step in exploring potential areas of cooperation” that “may or may not lead to a concrete project.” Its spokesperson, Ambrus Halász, said MOL would consult the government on any future steps.

This was the week, then, in which two governments that had spent months repairing ties managed to quarrel over a seat that was never taken and a tank that may never be filled. The Hungarian diplomat, surveyor of this wreckage, offered the era a name. “Now there is bad blood. Hungary does not want to harm Ukraine in any way; we understand that they are at war, and the situation today is much better compared to the Orbán era. What we have now, after the C8 mashup, is cold peace between the two countries. Under Orbán, we had a cold war.”

In Bukovel, the snow season has not started. The family photo, all six of them, remains posted.